USS O'Brien (Destroyer No. 51/DD-51) was the lead ship of s built for the United States Navy prior to the American entry into World War I. The ship was the second US Navy vessel named in honor of Jeremiah O'Brien and his five brothers Gideon, John, William, Dennis, and Joseph who, together on the sloop Unity, captured a British warship during the American Revolutionary War.
O'Brien was laid down by William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia in September 1913 and launched in July 1914.
After her May 1915 commissioning, O'Brien 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. After the United States entered World War I in April 1917, O'Brien was sent overseas to patrol the Irish Sea out of Queenstown, Ireland.
After returning to the United States in January 1919, O'Brien revisited European waters in May to serve as one of the picket ships for the NC-type seaplanes in the first aerial crossing of the Atlantic. O'Brien was decommissioned at Philadelphia in June 1922. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in March 1935 and sold for scrapping in April.
Design and construction
O'Brien was authorized in March 1913 as the lead ship of the , which was an improved version of the s authorized in 1911. Construction of the vessel was awarded to William Cramp & Sons of Philadelphia which laid down her keel on 8 September 1913. On 20 July 1914, O'Brien was launched by sponsor Miss Marcia Bradbury Campbell, great-great-granddaughter of Gideon O'Brien, one of the ship's namesakes. Gideon and his four brothers—John, William, Dennis, and Joseph—were crewmen aboard sloop Unity, under the command of their brother Jeremiah O'Brien, when that vessel captured on 12 June 1775 during the American Revolutionary War; the destroyer O'Brien was named after all six brothers, and was the second US Navy vessel named in their honor. with each gun weighing in excess of . In December, she was assigned to the 5th Division, Torpedo Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet. From early 1916-spring of 1917, she operated with the Fleet along the East Coast and in Cuban waters.
At 05:30 on 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 O'Brien and other destroyers at Newport to attend to survivors.
The American destroyers arrived on the scene at about 17:00 when the U-boat, under the command of Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose, was in the process of stopping the Holland-America Line cargo ship . Shortly after, U-53 stopped the British passenger ship . As Rose 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 before sinking the pair. In total, 226 survivors from U-53s five victims were rescued by the destroyer flotilla.
In February 1917, one of O'Briens gun crews hit a target at eight times in eight attempts with one of the destroyer's guns, a feat which earned the crew and O'Brien recognition in The Independent, a weekly newsmagazine published in Boston.
World War I
Returning from winter maneuvers off Cuba in March 1917, the ship was in the York River when the United States declared war on Germany on 6 April, entering World War I. After fitting out at Brooklyn Navy Yard, she got underway from New York on 15 May with , , , and , and joined convoy at Halifax, Nova Scotia, en route to Ireland. Upon arrival at Queenstown on 24 May, O'Brien was assigned to the 6th Destroyer Division which cooperated with the British forces. She patrolled off the Irish coast in company with other destroyers answering distress calls and meeting eastbound convoys to escort them through the war zone.
In 1919, she assisted in the unsuccessful first attempt to lay the Ambrose Channel pilot cable. In July 1920, she was assigned the hull code of DD-51 under the US Navy's alphanumeric classification system. O'Brien was decommissioned at Philadelphia on 5 June 1922.