USS Paulding (DD-22) was the lead ship of s in the United States Navy. She was named for Rear Admiral Hiram A. Paulding (1797–1878). She was in commission from 1910 to 1919 and saw service in World War I.
After her Navy service, Paulding served in the United States Coast Guard as USCGC Paulding (CG-17) from 1924 to 1930.
Construction and commissioning
Paulding was laid down by the Bath Iron Works Corporation at Bath, Maine, on 24 July 1909. She was launched on 12 April 1910, sponsored by Miss Emma Paulding, and commissioned on 29 September 1910, Lieutenant Commander Yates Stirling Jr. in command. She was the first American destroyer solely fueled by fuel oil.
United States Navy
Assigned to the Atlantic Torpedo Fleet, Paulding operated primarily off the United States East Coast until after the United States entered World War I on 6 April 1917. During April 1917, she patrolled off the New England coast and in May 1917 she prepared for distant service. On 21 May 1917, she got underway for the United Kingdom, arriving at Queenstown, Ireland, to escort convoys and protect them from Imperial German Navy U-boats. She served on that duty through the end of the war.
On 24 February 1918, Paulding was proceeding in a scouting line with the destroyers and in the Atlantic Ocean off the south coast of Ireland bound for Queenstown when she sighted the British Royal Navy submarine ′s periscope. Mistaking L2 for a German U-boat, she headed for the periscope at flank speed and opened gunfire. L2 had sighted the destroyers and, assuming that the destroyers had not seen her periscope, submerged to , but upon hearing Paulding open fire, she dove to . Paulding dropped two depth charges, the first of which shook L2 severely and jammed her diving planes in a hard-upward position. This caused L2 to take on a tremendous inclination, and her stern struck the seabed at a depth of . Four more depth charges exploded, again shaking the submarine. L2′s commanding officer gave the order to blow the number 5 and 6 ballast tanks, and L2 surfaced bow-first. Davis dropped a depth charge near her, and then all three destroyers opened gunfire on her from a range of about . One round struck L2′s pressure hull just abaft her conning tower. Some of L2s crew emerged from her conning tower, waved their hands and a White Ensign, and fired a smoke grenade. The destroyers ceased fire immediately. L-2 did not sustain serious damage, and Davis escorted her to Berehaven, Ireland. The force commander of British submarines, Captain Martin Dunbar-Nasmith, commended L2 and the destroyers for the action in his report on the friendly fire incident. Admiral Lewis Bayly, the Royal Navy′s Commander-in-Chief, Coast of Ireland, in his endorsement of Nasmith′s report, wrote, "Had L-2 not been very skillfully and coolly handled, she would have been lost. The U. S. destroyers deserve great credit for their smartness in attack, and for their quickness in recognizing the submarine as British."