USS McDougal (Destroyer No. 54/DD-54) was an built for the United States Navy prior to the American entry into World War I. The ship was the second U.S. Navy vessel named in honor of David Stockton McDougal, a U.S. Navy officer notable for his leadership during an 1863 battle off Japan while in command of .
McDougal was laid down by Bath Iron Works of Bath, Maine, in July 1913 and launched in April 1914. The ship was a little more than in length, just over abeam, and had a standard displacement of . She was armed with four guns and had eight 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes. McDougal was powered by a pair of steam turbines that propelled her at up to .
After her June 1914 commissioning, McDougal sailed off the east coast and in the Caribbean. She was one of seventeen destroyers sent out to rescue survivors from five victims of German submarine off the Lightship Nantucket in October 1916, and carried 6 crewmen from a sunken Dutch cargo ship to Newport, Rhode Island. After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, McDougal was part of the first U.S. destroyer squadron sent overseas. Patrolling the Irish Sea out of Queenstown, Ireland, McDougal made several unsuccessful attacks on U-boats, and rescued survivors of ships sunk by the German craft. After a collision with a British cargo ship in February 1918, McDougal was under repair until mid-July, and afterwards, operated out of Brest, France.
Upon returning to the United States after the war, McDougal conducted operations with the destroyers of the Atlantic Fleet until August 1919, when she was placed in reserve, still in commission. After a brief stint of operations in mid 1921, she was placed in reserve until she was decommissioned at Philadelphia in May 1922. In June 1924, Ericsson was transferred to the United States Coast Guard to help enforce Prohibition as a part of the "Rum Patrol". She operated under the name USCGC McDougal (CG-6) until May 1933, when she was returned to the Navy. In November she dropped her name to free it for a new destroyer of the same name, becoming known only as DD-54. She was struck for the Naval Vessel Register in July 1934 and sold for scrapping in August.
Design and construction
McDougal was authorized in March 1913 as the fourth of six ships of the , which was an improved version of the s authorized in 1911. Construction of the vessel was awarded to Bath Iron Works of Bath, Maine, which laid down her keel on 29 July 1913. On 22 April 1914, McDougal was launched by sponsor Miss Marguerite S. LeBreton, The ship was the first U.S. Navy ship named for McDougal, notable for his leadership during an 1863 battle off Japan while in command of .
McDougals main battery consisted of 4 × /50 caliber Mark 9 guns,<!-- number, size --><!-- calibers --> with each gun weighing in excess of . While on board McDougal during one of these patrols, Malone discovered what The New York Times termed a "widespread conspiracy" intended to supply British warships outside U.S. territorial waters, in violation of the American neutrality in World War I.
She cruised to the Caribbean and took part in fleet war games between January and May 1916, and in addition served intermittently with the Neutrality patrol. In May, she was declared the "champion smokeless vessel" of the U.S. Navy by The Christian Science Monitor after she was able to steam at for four hours without betraying her position by smoke. In June, The Washington Post reported that she was damaged during maneuvers off Cape Ann, and had to put into the Boston Navy Yard for leak repairs.
At 05:30 on Sunday, 8 October 1916, wireless reports came in of a German submarine stopping ships near the Lightship Nantucket, off the eastern end of Long Island. After an SOS from the British steamer was received at about 12:30, Rear Admiral Albert Gleaves ordered McDougal and other destroyers at Newport to attend to survivors. According to a firsthand account of the events by Nathan Levy, a quartermaster on McDougal, published on 22 October in The New York Times, the destroyer steamed the distance to the lightship in three-and-a-half hours, arriving after German submarine had stopped the Holland America Line cargo ship and the British passenger ship . As Hans Rose - the captain of U-53 - had done with three other ships U-53 had sunk earlier in the day, he gave passengers and crew aboard Blommersdijk and Stephano adequate time to abandon the ships. After sinking Blommersdijk with two torpedoes, Six American destroyers witnessed U-53 sink the liner with her deck gun. In total, 226 survivors from U-53s five victims were rescued by the destroyer flotilla; McDougal patrolled off the Irish coast, escorting convoys of merchant ships and troop transports, searching for German submarines, and performing rescue operations for ships sunk. When British ship was torpedoed and sunk by on 5 June 1917, McDougal sped to her assistance and rescued 33 survivors. When President Woodrow Wilson arrived at Brest on just over two weeks later, the destroyer served as part of that transport's escort into the harbor. On 21 December, McDougal departed Brest 21 December with Destroyer Division 7 and reached New York 8 January 1919. McDougal was activated and acquired by the Coast Guard on 7 June 1924. In April 1933, McDougal was one of the Coast Guard ships deployed to search for the U.S. Navy airship when it crashed into the Atlantic on the night of 3/4 April. Later that same month, McDougal was dispatched to help the Italian steamer Voluntas when she had requested assistance on the 23rd, but was recalled when Voluntas rescinded the call for help.
After nearly eight years of Coast Guard service, McDougal was decommissioned at Philadelphia on 26 May 1933 and returned to the custody of the U.S. Navy on 30 June.