Graham (Destroyer No. 192)
1920-1922
Secretary of the Navy William A. Graham was born in 1804 and died 1875. Graduating from University of North Carolina 1824, he was admitted to the bar 1826. From 1833 he repeatedly was elected to House of Commons, of which he was speaker 1839-40. From 1840-43 he was in the U.S. Senate, and 1844 and 1846, elected Whig governor of North Carolina, declining a third term. From 1850-52, he was Secretary of the Navy, when he organized Perry's Expedition to Japan, during the administration of President Filmore.
(Destroyer No. 192: displacement 1,215; length 310'0"; beam 30'111/2 "; draft 9'4"; speed 35.0 knots; complement 122; armament 4 4-inch; 1 3-inch; 12 21-inch torpedo tubes; class Clemson)
Graham (Destroyer No. 192) was laid down on 7 September 1918 at Newport News, Va., by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co.; launched on 22 March 1919; sponsored by Mrs. Robert F. Smallwood, granddaughter of Secretary of Navy William A. Graham; and commissioned at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Va., on 13 March 1920, Lt. Cmdr. Paulus P. Powell in command.
Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, after several trial runs on East Coast, Graham was at first given the special duty, together with two other destroyers, of a moving picture boat carrying the moving picture photographers, in connection with the International Cup Race, under the auspices of the New York Yacht Club, beginning 15 July 1920 and on alternate days thereafter until 27 July, when the Race was completed. During that time, she was redesignated as DD-192 on 17 July.
Graham then joined the Atlantic Torpedo Fleet at Newport, R.I., for exercises and training along the east coast, and for neutrality patrol and exercises off Guantanamo Bay and in Canal Zone. In 1921, she participated in combined division, squadron and fleet maneuvers off South America, visiting Callao, Peru, and Balboa, C.Z., before returning to Hampton Roads, where she took part in the Presidential Fleet Review at Norfolk, Va., in April 1921. She also participated in the bombing tests on former German ships off the Virginia coast that summer. On 27 October, in company with the 20th Division, she escorted the French p[assenger steamship Paris, in which General Ferdinand Foch was a passenger, to New York, and convoyed her up Ambrose Channel, N.Y. Then she commenced antiaircraft practice. On 12 November 1921 she had a change of status from operative commission to reduced complement. She was en route to New York from Charleston, S.C., when on 16 December she collided with SS Panama off the New Jersey coast and had to return to New York.
Graham decommissioned at New York Navy Yard 31 March 1922, and was sold for scrapping, 19 September 1922.
