USS Wadsworth (Torpedo Boat Destroyer No. 60).
Return of the Mayflower by Bernard F. Gribble.
Flagship of Commander Joseph K. Taussig’s Destroyer Division 8, USS
Wadsworth gained prominence for leading the
first American destroyers to arrive at Queenstown, Ireland on 4 May 1917 to commence the United States’ active support of the hard-pressed Royal Navy as captured in Bernard F. Gribble’s painting
Return of the Mayflower, commissioned two years later by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Other early destroyer classes and 27 flush deckers followed. Eventually, nearly 2 million American troops reached Europe via convoys escorted by these destroyers without loss en route.
