Two months later, on 14 November, she became the first in a long line of destroyers to serve as plane guards when aviator Eugene Ely made the first aircraft takeoff from a warship’s deck. Later in 1910 she went to the Gulf of Mexico for exercises and, for the next six years conducted peacetime operations along the US Atlantic Coast and in the waters of the Gulf and Caribbean Sea.

As war with Germany approached in April 1917, Roe was assigned to guard German merchant ships in US ports. Once war was declared she began escort and patrol service out of Newport, Rhode Island. She steamed across the Atlantic to France in November 1917 and spent the next year operating out of the port of Brest protecting Allied shipping against German submarines.

Roe returned to the US in December 1918, shortly after the fighting ended. She was stationed at Charleston, South Carolina until July 1919, then went to the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where she was decommissioned at the beginning of December 1919.

Designated DD 24 when the Navy implemented its hull number system in July 1920, she remained laid up until June 1924, when she was transferred to the US Coast Guard. As USCGC Roe (CG 18), she was employed against liquor smugglers until October 1930, when she was returned to the Navy and again placed in reserve at Philadelphia. USS Roe was sold for scrapping in mid-1934.

Roe was named in honor of Rear Admiral Francis A. Roe (1823–1901).

Source: Naval History & Heritage Command including Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.