USS Waters (DD-115) was a in the United States Navy during World War I and World War II, later re-designated a high speed transport with the hull identification number APD-8. She was named in honor of Daniel Waters.
Construction and commissioning Waters was laid down on 26 July 1917 at Philadelphia by William Cramp & Sons. The ship was launched on 3 March 1918, sponsored by Miss Mary Borland Thayer. The destroyer was commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 8 August 1918.
Service history
World War I Although her active service began late in World War I, Waters still managed to get in two round-trip voyages to the British Isles and one to the Azores before the armistice in November 1918. On 11 August, she joined a convoy at Tompkinsville, New York, and put to sea for England. She escorted her charges safely into Devonport on 23 August and stood out again four days later in the screen for four ships headed home.
The destroyer delivered the small convoy at New York on 6 September and, following a three-day layover, departed once again—this time bound for Ireland. Eleven days later, she entered the port at Buncrana. She remained there for eight days before again putting to sea. On 8 October, Waters arrived in New York and, but for a run to Newport, Rhode Island, on 31 October and 1 November, remained there until she put to sea with a convoy again on 4 November. This one was made up of 11 merchantmen bound for the Azores. Waters and her convoy were still three days steaming time from Ponta Delgada on 11 November 1918, when the armistice brought hostilities in Europe to a close. She entered the Portuguese island port with the convoy on 14 November. Eight days later, Waters headed west again and arrived at New York on 28 November.
Inter-war period The destroyer remained there under repairs until mid-January 1919. On 15 January, she put to sea for another voyage to the Azores. Waters stayed in Ponta Delgada from her arrival on 21 January until 17 February when she headed back to the United States. She reached Boston on 25 February and moved to Philadelphia early in March for another series of repairs. On 3 April, she got underway for a brief run, via New York, to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The destroyer returned to New York on 14 March and remained there through the end of the month. On 1 May, she stood out of port, in company with , , , , , and , to take up station as part of the picket of destroyers dotting the path of the transatlantic flight to be conducted by Navy flying boats. After an overnight stop at Trepassey Bay, Newfoundland, on 4 and 5 May, Waters dropped anchor off Santa Cruz in the Azores on 10 May.
On 17 May, she got underway at 0643 and arrived at her station, located between the islands of Corvo and Flores, at 0750. There, she lay to await the passage of the three seaplanes attempting the flight. Finally, at about 1112, her crew heard the drone of the engines of a single seaplane as NC-4, the only one of the three seaplanes to successfully complete the flight, passed overhead.
That afternoon, the warship left her station to search for NC-1 which had made a forced landing at sea. During the search, she received word that the third plane, NC-3, was also lost in the fog. Just after noon the following day, she received word that NC-1 had been found and its crew rescued by the Greek cargo ship . Accordingly, Waters returned to her anchorage off Santa Cruz that night.
Early the next morning, she weighed anchor to participate in the search for NC-3; however, she soon learned that NC-3 had been sighted off Ponta Delgada, navigating on the surface, and heading for that port under its own power. That same day, 19 May, the warship departed the Azores and shaped a course for Newport, Rhode Island, where she arrived on 23 May.
The destroyer operated out of Newport and New York until mid-July. She was among the destroyers which escorted the battleship out to sea on 8 July when Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels embarked in the battleship to meet , off New York harbor and to welcome President Woodrow Wilson as he returned home from the peace negotiations in Europe.
On 14 July, Waters sailed from New York, via Hampton Roads and the Panama Canal, to the west coast. She pulled into San Diego on 5 August and, after six weeks of operations which included a voyage to the Hawaiian Islands, was placed in reserve at San Diego on 21 September 1919.
1920s On 24 February 1920, Waters came out of reserve and moved to Bremerton, Washington, where she began a nine-month overhaul preparatory to her return to active service. While the destroyer was at Puget Sound, the Navy adopted the alphanumeric system of hull designations, and Waters became DD-115 on or about 17 July 1920. She completed her reconditioning on 30 November and returned to San Diego at the end of the first week in December.
During the first few months of 1921, she operated as a unit of Division X, a special organizational unit, to which and Dent were also attached, pending the reconstitution of Division 14 in its entirety. In January and February, she made a cruise to Central and South America. She stopped in the Panama Canal Zone on her way south and visited Valparaíso and Mejillones Bay in Chile during the first two weeks of February and then returned to Panama for nine days of battle practice with the Fleet. On 23 February, she headed home and, after visits to Costa Rica and El Salvador, reached San Diego on 11 March.
Waters remained there until 21 June when she got underway north and, following brief stops at San Pedro and Mare Island, entered Bremerton, Washington, on 27 June to prepare at the Puget Sound Navy Yard for duty in the Far East. Almost a month later, she returned south to San Francisco, whence she sailed for the Far East on 21 July. After stops at Pearl Harbor, Midway, and Guam, Waters steamed into Manila Bay on 24 August and reported for duty with the Asiatic Fleet at the Cavite Navy Yard.
The destroyer remained in the vicinity of Luzon through most of her tour of duty in the Orient. She visited Olongapo and Manila frequently and conducted combat training and torpedo exercises off the northwestern shores of the island in Lingayen Gulf. On 3 June 1922, she departed the Philippines and headed north for the Asiatic Fleet's usual summer cruise to Chinese waters. She arrived at Shanghai three days later and, for the remaining seven weeks of her tour in the Orient, visited Chinese ports such as Yantai and Qinhuangdao.
On 25 August, the warship weighed anchor at Yantai to return to the United States. She stopped at Nagasaki in Japan, Midway Island, and Pearl Harbor en route to San Francisco, where she finally arrived on 3 October. After a week of repairs at Mare Island Navy Yard, Waters steamed south and, upon her arrival at San Diego on 23 October, immediately began preparations for inactivation. On 28 December 1922, Waters was decommissioned there and was laid up at the destroyer base.
1930s On 4 June 1930, following more than seven years of inactivity, Waters was recommissioned at San Diego. After a month of refurbishing, she began operations along the west coast on 18 July and continued that routine for the next 18 months.
On 1 February 1932, she departed the west coast for the first time since her return from the Far East in 1922. She arrived in Lahaina Roads in the Hawaiian Islands on 12 February and took part in a landing exercise as a unit of the antisubmarine screen. The destroyer spent most of her time in Lahaina Roads but managed brief visits to Oahu and Hilo.
Waters returned to San Diego on 21 March and resumed normal operations until late January 1933. On 24 January, the warship arrived at Mare Island where she was placed in Rotating Reserve Squadron 20. She passed the next six months idly, moored to pierside at Mare Island with a severely reduced crew on board.
Early in July 1933, Waters returned to active service as a unit of Destroyer Division (DesDiv) 5, Destroyer Squadron (DesRon) 2, Battle Force Destroyers. She left Mare Island on 10 July, arrived at San Diego two days later, and resumed operations along the west coast. After more than eight months of such activity, the warship put to sea from San Diego on 9 April 1934 for an extended voyage to the Atlantic.
Waters reached Balboa, Canal Zone, on 22 April, transited the canal three days later, and was moored at Cristobal for a fortnight. On 5 May, she sailed for the gunnery range at Culebra Island near Puerto Rico. For the next three weeks, Waters participated in maneuvers in conjunction with Fleet Problem XV, a three-phased exercise which encompassed an attack upon and defense of the Panama Canal, the capture of advanced bases, and a major fleet engagement. On 25 May, the destroyer shaped a course north to Rhode Island. After a stop at New York City, she stood into Newport on 6 July and conducted tactical exercises out of Newport for two months.
On 7 September, she embarked upon a leisurely voyage back to San Diego. Along the way, she stopped at Hampton Roads, Tampa, Florida, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Consequently, the warship did not transit the canal until 25 October. She reached San Diego on 8 November and went back into the Rotating Reserve on 19 December.
The warship returned to active duty in May 1935, and resumed operations along the west coast as a unit of DesDiv 19. Late in April 1936, she steamed south to the Panama Canal where she again joined in the maneuvers associated with the annual fleet concentrations which were conducted on the Pacific side of the isthmus. She returned to San Diego at the end of the first week in June and conducted normal operations for a month before leaving the west coast on 6 July.
Her voyage to Hawaii came as a result of DesDiv 19's assignment to the Submarine Force in conjunction with sonar tests. Sometime during the first half of the year, Waters and her sisters in the division had received the latest sound gear—high frequency directional sonar which allowed a destroyer to locate a submarine more accurately. Previously, sonar could at best indicate the presence of a submarine somewhere near the destroyer. The new equipment enabled submarine hunters to estimate the interloper's bearing and distance and therefore increased the probability of success of the destroyer's depth charge attacks. From July 1936 until late June 1939, Waters and her division mates cooperated with units of the Submarine Force in experiments to develop the techniques which translated the theoretical potential of the new technological developments into efficient antisubmarine warfare doctrine. Waters departed Hawaii for the west coast on 20 June 1939. She reached San Diego ten days later and was assigned to the Underwater Sound Training School. Between that time and America's entry into World War II, the destroyer continued to develop the Navy's antisubmarine warfare capability by teaching techniques which she had developed to sonar operators and officers assigned to the Fleet.
World War II When the Japanese launched their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Waters was in port at San Diego and still operating with the Sound School. She received word of the hostilities at 11:25 and immediately began preparations to put to sea. That afternoon, the destroyer made a three-hour antisubmarine sweep of the approaches to San Diego. On 8 December, she departed San Diego in the screen of Hawaii-bound aircraft carrier . Six days later, the carrier and her screen, DesDiv 50, entered Pearl Harbor. During her ten days at Oahu, Waters periodically conducted patrols of the sea approaches to the harbor. Two days before Christmas, she got underway homeward with a task unit built around the cruisers , , and . She escorted the cruisers into San Francisco on 29 December and returned to San Diego on 30 December.
1942