U.S.S. Bailey (1899)

U.S.S. Bailey (1899)
Hull Number:	TB-21
Builder:	Gas Engine & Power Co. and Chas. L. Seabury & Co.
Ordered:	Act of 3 March, 1897
Laid down:	30 Apr, 1898
Launched:	5 Dec, 1899
Commissioned:	20 Jul, 1901
Decommissioned:	18 Mar, 1919
Stricken:	28 Oct, 1919
Sold:	10 Mar, 1920
Fate:	Broken up

U.S.S. Bailey was a torpedo boat completed in 1901 for the U.S. Navy.

Construction

Template:DANFS Bailey was laid down on 30 April, 1898 at Morris Heights, N.Y., by the Gas Engine and Power Company and the Charles L. Seabury & Co.. She was launched on 5 December, 1899, sponsored by Miss Florence Beekman Bailey.

Service

Bailey was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 10 June 1901, Lieutenant George W. Williams in command.

Three days after commissioning, Bailey got underway for the Torpedo Station, Newport, R.I., where she served for several months. She headed south in October 1901 and arrived at Port Royal, South Carolina, on the last day of the month. The torpedo boat stayed there until June 1902 when she was transferred to Norfolk. On arrival on 14 June, 1902, Bailey was placed out of commission.

Bailey was put into commission, in reserve, on 27 January, 1904. As a unit of the Reserve Torpedo Flotilla, she spent most of her time tied up at a pier in Norfolk because of a shortage of personnel. However, she did put to sea occasionally to test her machinery, armaments, and equipment. She was placed back into full commission on 7 November, 1909 for transfer to the Charleston Navy Yard where she again went into reserve on 22 December, 1909.

Bailey was returned to full commission on 1 June, 1910 and cruised the Atlantic coast for several months in the 1st Torpedo Division. Detached from that organization on 14 September, 1910, Bailey proceeded to Annapolis, where she undertook duty training midshipmen at the Naval Academy, as well as performing services for the engineering experimentation station located there. In October 1911, Bailey joined the Reserve Torpedo Division at Annapolis and continued in that status until she was placed "in ordinary" at the Naval Academy on 1 April, 1914.

Bailey remained largely inactive at Annapolis until two months before the United States entered World War I, although on 12 June, 1915, one of her boilers exploded during a cruise in the Chesapeake Bay.Template:SliverstoneNewNavy

World War I

On 6 February, 1917, Bailey was returned to full commission and assigned temporarily to patrol duty out of Norfolk. On 10 May, 1917, she Norfolk for her permanent wartime station at New York City. She spent the remainder of the war patrolling the waters in and around New York. On 1 August, 1918, in order to clear the name Bailey for a new construction destroyer, she was renamed Coast Torpedo Boat No. 8.

Following the armistice, she continued active service at New York until ordered to Philadelphia on 17 January, 1919. She arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 5 February, 1919 and was placed out of commission for the last time on 18 March, 1919. Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 28 October, 1919, and she was sold for scrapping to the U.S. Rail & Salvage Corp. of Newburgh, New York on 10 March, 1920.

Captains

Dates of appointment are provided when known.

• Lieutenant George W. Williams, 10 June, 1901

Armament

• Four 6-pounder guns
• Two 18-inch torpedo tubes in single mounts between second and third funnel

See Also

• Wikipedia

Bibliography

• Chesneau, Robert; Kolesnik, Eugene (editors) (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
• Friedman, Norman (1985). U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. (on Amazon.com).
• Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). The U.S. Navy Warship Series: The New Navy 1883-1922. New York: Routledge.

Torpedo Boat U.S.S. Bailey

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U.S.S. Farragut

Torpedo Boats (US)

U.S.S. Goldsborough

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