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USS Maury (DD-100) was a Wickes class destroyer that entered service in the last weeks of the First World War, operating in the Aegean in 1919, and as a minelayer for most of the 1920s.
The Maury was named after Matthew Fontaine Maury, the leading oceanographer of the middle part of the Nineteenth Century. Unusually for someone chosen to give their name to the US navy warship, he served with the Confederate Navy during the Civil War.
The Maury was laid down on 4 May 1918 at Quincy, Mass, launched on 4 July 1918 and commissioned on 23 September 1918. She then underwent a shakedown cruise.
Anyone who served on her between 29 September and 8 November 1918 qualified for the First World War Victory Medal. Presumably this covered the period of her shakedown cruise, which was conducted off the US East Coast, and must have taken her into the high seas required for the award.
The Maury left New York as part of a convoy escort on 12 November 1918, the day after the armistice. She was detached from the convoy at the Azores and send to Gibraltar, where she arrived on 26 November. She spent the next few months in the western Mediterranean, before joining the Adriatic Detachment at Venice on 18 February 1919.
The Maury spent five months with the Adriatic Detachment, one of the busiest in the post-war period. Its role was to try and prevent the various claims to the former Austrian ports on the Adriatic turning violent, with particular problems at Trieste, then claimed by Italy and Yugoslavia. The squadron also worked with the Food Commission, and to clear mines in the Adriatic shipping lanes.
The Maury returned to the United States on 25 July 1919. In October she moved to Philadelphia where she underwent an overhaul, and was converted into a light minelayer. On 17 July 1920 she was redesignated as DM-5. On 23 July 1921 she joined Mine Squadron 1, at Gloucester, Mass. For the next seven years she followed the standard pattern of Atlantic fleet operations spending the summer off the US East Coast and the winters taking part in fleet exercises in the Caribbean. The only exception came in 1925 when the exercises took part in the Pacific.
Her last Caribbean deployment was in the winter of 1929. She spent the summer of 1929 in the Gulf of Mexico, and the winter of 1929-30 on the East Coast, before being decommissioned on 19 March 1930. She was struck off the Naval Register on 22 October 1930 and sold for scrap on 17 January 1931.
Displacement (standard) |
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Displacement (loaded) |
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Top Speed |
35kts design |
Engine |
2 shaft Parsons turbines |
Range |
2,500nm at 20kts (design) |
Armour - belt |
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- deck |
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Length |
314ft 4.5in |
Width |
30ft 11.5in |
Armaments |
Four 4in/ 50 guns |
Crew complement |
100 |