Figure 1: Victory Destroyer Plant, Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Squantum, Massachusetts. Interior of the wet slips, with USS Bailey (DD-269, builder's Hull No. 349) fitting out in the center. The less-advanced hull to the right may be USS Morris (DD-271). Of the ships represented on the "thermometer" progress chart at left, Hulls 346-348 -- Greene (DD-266), Ballard (DD-267) and Shubrick (DD-268) -- were completed outdoors at this time and Hull 345, USS Edwards (DD-265), had been commissioned on 24 April. Photographed between 27 April and 3 May 1919 by Monks & Johnson, Boston, Mass. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 2: Victory Destroyer Plant, Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Squantum, Massachusetts. View of the open dock, with destroyers fitting out, including USS Shubrick (DD-268, builder's No. 348), Ballard (DD-267, builder's No. 347) and (probably) Greene (DD-266, builder's No. 346). Note destroyer mast, with crow's nest, lying on the pier at left. Photographed between 27 April and 3 May 1919 by Monks & Johnson, Boston, Mass. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 3: USS Greene (DD-266) photographed circa 1919 to 1922. US Naval Historical Center Photograph. Click on photograph for larger image.
Figure 4: High-speed transports (APD) at Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria, in late 1944. The APDs present, in center, are: USS Greene (APD-36) -- closest to camera; USS Osmond Ingram (APD-35) -- next inboard; USS Barry (APD-29); USS Roper (APD-20); and USS Tattnall (APD-19). At the extreme right is USS Hilary P. Jones (DD-427). This photograph was dated January 1945, but was taken at least a month earlier. Note the old fort in the background. Official US Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. Click on photograph for larger image.
Named after
Commander Samuel Greene (1839-1884), the former commanding officer of the first
ironclad, USS Monitor, the 1,215-ton
USS Greene was a Clemson class destroyer that was built by the Bethlehem
Shipbuilding Corporation at Squantum, Massachusetts, and was commissioned on 9
May 1919. The ship was approximately 314 feet long and 30 feet wide, had a top
speed of 35 knots, and had a crew of 122 officers and men. Greene was armed with four 4-inch guns, one 3-inch gun, 12 21-inch
torpedo tubes, and depth charges.
After being
commissioned, Greene visited France
and England in June and July of 1919. She was transferred to the US Navy’s
Pacific Fleet later that year. The ship was placed in reserve from March 1920
to September 1921, then was briefly active along America’s west coast. Greene was decommissioned in June 1922
and remained that way for the next eighteen years.
With the
start of World War II in Europe in 1939 and the possibility of war looming for
the United States, Greene was
re-commissioned in June 1940. However, the ship was converted into a small
seaplane tender and re-designated AVD-13. Greene
was active in the Atlantic in April 1941, supporting seaplanes in the Caribbean
and off the coast of Brazil until mid-1942, after America officially entered
World War II. Greene then was used as
a convoy escort from mid-1942 to late 1943, joining the escort carriers USS Bogue (CVE-9) and USS Core (CVE-13) on anti-submarine
“hunter-killer” operations. Greene’s
missions with Bogue from April to
June 1943 resulted in the destruction of three German U-boats and earned Greene a Presidential Unit Citation.
Greene reverted to her old hull number
DD-266 From December 1943 to February 1944. She was modified for service as a
high-speed transport in early 1944 and was re-designated APD-36 for that role. In
April 1944, Greene left the United
States and crossed the Atlantic and then entered the Mediterranean, where she
participated in the invasion of Southern France in August. Subsequent Mediterranean
escort duties kept Greene occupied
until December 1944, when she returned to the United States for transfer to the
Pacific.
Greene arrived in the western Pacific in
March 1945. The ship was given escort and anti-submarine duties during the
invasion of Okinawa and remained off that island until the Japanese surrendered
in August. In September, Greene
assisted in evacuating former American prisoners of war who were located not
far from the Japanese port of Nagasaki, which had been obliterated by the
atomic bomb. Greene picked up the
former P.O.W.s from what was left of Nagasaki and brought them to Okinawa for
final evacuation to the United States.
