USS Quick (DD-490)

History

United States
Name:	Quick
Namesake:	John H. Quick
Builder:	Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company
Laid down:	3 November 1941
Launched:	3 May 1942
Commissioned:	3 July 1942
Identification:	DD-490
Reclassified:	DMS-32, 23 June 1945
Decommissioned:	28 May 1949
Struck:	15 January 1972
Fate:	Sold 27 August 1973 for scrapping
General characteristics
Class and type:	Gleaves-class destroyer
Displacement:	1,630 tons
Length:	348 ft 3 in (106.15 m)
Beam:	36 ft 1 in (11.00 m)
Draft:	11 ft 10 in (3.61 m)
Propulsion:	50,000 shp (37,000 kW) 4 boilers 2 propellers
Speed:	37.4 knots (69 km/h)
Range:	6,500 nmi (12,000 km; 7,500 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement:	16 officers, 260 enlisted
Armament:	5 × 5 in (127 mm) dual purpose guns, 6 × 0.50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns, 6 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons, 10 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes, 2 × depth charge tracks

USS Quick (DD-490/DMS-32), a Gleaves-class destroyer, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for Sergeant Major John H. Quick (1870–1922), who received the Medal of Honor "for gallantry in action" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 14 June 1898, during the Spanish–American War.

Quick was laid down by the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Kearny, New Jersey on 3 November 1941. The ship was completed and launched on 3 May 1942; sponsored by Mrs. William T. Roy, niece of Sergeant Major Quick. She was commissioned on 3 July 1942, with Lieutenant Commander R. B. Nickerson in command.

Following her initial shakedown off the coast of New England and the Maritime Provinces, Quick departed New York, 6 September 1942, for the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Assigned to escort work, she accompanied United States Army transports and merchantmen as they plied the Gulf and West Indian shipping lanes — lanes which in preceding months had suffered the greatest losses to U-boat activities in the eastern Atlantic Ocean.