Wickes-class destroyer

The Wickes-class destroyers were a class of 111 destroyers built by the United States Navy in 1917 to 1919. Together with the six earlier ships of the Caldwell class and the 156 later Clemson-class destroyers they formed the flush-deck, four-stack type. Only a few were finished in time to serve in the First World War, including the lead ship USS Wickes. Some were scrapped in the 1930s and the rest served throughout the Second World War, most of them converted to other uses, with nearly all in United States service having half their boilers and one or more stacks removed to add fuel capacity or carry troops. Others were transferred to the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy and some of those later went to the Soviet Navy. All were scrapped within a few years after the war. Bath Iron Works in Maine built eight of them.