USS Woodbury (DD-309)
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
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| Namesake: | Levi Woodbury |
| Builder: | Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Union Iron Works, San Francisco |
| Laid down: | 3 October 1918 |
| Launched: | 6 February 1919 |
| Commissioned: | 20 October 1920 |
| Decommissioned: | 26 October 1923 |
| Struck: | 20 November 1923 |
| Fate: | Wrecked in Honda Point Disaster 8 September 1923 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Clemson-class destroyer |
| Displacement: | 1,308 tons |
| Length: | 314 feet 4 1⁄2 inches (95.82 m) |
| Beam: | 30 feet 11 1⁄2 inches (9.44 m) |
| Draft: | 9 feet 4 inches (2.84 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 35 kn (65 km/h) |
| Range: |
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| Complement: | 122 officers and enlisted |
| Armament: | 4 × 4 in (102 mm)/50 guns, 1 × 3 in (76 mm)/25 gun, 12 × 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, 2 depth charge tracks |
The third USS Woodbury (DD-309) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy. She was named for Levi Woodbury.
Woodbury was laid down on 3 October 1918 at San Francisco, California, by the Union Iron Works plant of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation; launched on 6 February 1919; sponsored by Miss Catherine Muhlenberg Chapin, the daughter of newspaper publisher W. W. Chapin; reclassified DD-309 on 17 July 1920; and commissioned at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California, on 20 October 1920, Lieutenant Commander Frank L. Lowe in command.
Woodbury departed San Francisco on 22 November and reached San Diego, her assigned home port, the following day. Woodbury moored at the Reserve Docks, where she remained into 1921. The destroyer, like many of her numerous sisters begun during World War I, had entered service at a time when the post-war cutbacks in funds and personnel had seriously curtailed American peacetime naval operations. Accordingly, she was placed in a "rotating reserve" established by the Navy to maintain a "force in readiness." In operation, the system required that one-third of a given force remain pierside, maintained by only the minimum number of officers and men, while another third was to be half-manned as it remained berthed at a buoy in the harbor. The last third was fully manned and remained at buoys in the harbor but for periodic operations underway at sea.
Woodbury departed her mooring at the Reserve Docks on 1 February 1921 and, over the next few days, conducted torpedo practices and made a 30-knot (56 km/h) speed run off the southern California coast. During that brief underway period, the destroyer conducted her operations during the day and returned to her mooring buoy in the evenings. She remained largely port-bound from March to May, but moved to San Pedro, California, on 14 June. There, her crew assisted in preservation and maintenance work on William Jones (DD-308) while she lay in drydock at the Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, San Pedro. Woodbury then underwent a drydocking herself for the application of anti-corrosive and antifouling paint to her bottom. Woodbury later returned to San Diego and, but for a run, via Los Angeles harbor, to Seattle, Washington, stayed there for the remainder of 1921.
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