USS Conyngham (DD-58) - United States Coast Guard Career

United States Coast Guard Career

On 17 January 1920, Prohibition was instituted by law in the United States. Soon, the smuggling of alcoholic beverages along the coastlines of the United States became widespread and blatant. The Treasury Department eventually determined that the United States Coast Guard simply did not have the ships to constitute a successful patrol. To cope with the problem, President Calvin Coolidge in 1924 authorized the transfer from the Navy to the Coast Guard of twenty old destroyers that were in reserve and out of commission. Conyngham was reactivated and transferred to the Treasury Department on 7 June 1924 for use by the Coast Guard. Designated CG-2, Conyngham was commissioned on 8 March 1925, and joined the "Rum Patrol" to aid in the attempt to enforce prohibition laws.

After the United States Congress proposed the Twenty-first Amendment to end prohibition in February 1933, plans were made for Conyngham to be returned to the Navy. On 27 May 1933, Conyngham arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and was decommissioned nine days later, on 5 June. Conyngham was transferred back to the Navy on 30 June. Later in 1933, the ship was renamed DD-58 in order to free the name Conyngham for a new destroyer of the same name. DD-58 remained in noncommissioned status until struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 5 July 1934. She was sold for scrap on 22 August in accordance with the London Naval Treaty.

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