Early Career
USS Wainwright was commissioned into the United States Navy on 12 May 1916 under the command of Lieutenant Fred H. Poteet. After fitting out at Philadelphia, the destroyer rounded Cape May on 20 June and headed for Newport, Rhode Island, to load torpedoes before joining Division 8 of the Atlantic Fleet Destroyer Flotilla. Following exercises near Eastport, Maine, she remained on the New England coast until mid-September when she headed south for gunnery tests and training off the Virginia capes. Upon the completion of a fortnight's gun drills, the ship then returned to Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, on 2 October. Later that month, Wainwright operated out of Newport, practiced torpedo tactics near Vineyard Sound, and visited New York to pick up cargo for the flotilla's tender, Melville. She returned to Newport on the 18th and, eight days later, resumed torpedo practice near Vineyard Sound for the remainder of the month. She put into Boston, Massachusetts on 1 November for extensive repairs in the navy yard.
Refurbished, the destroyer got underway for the Caribbean on 8 January 1917. Steaming via Hampton Roads, Virginia, she reached Culebra Island, near Puerto Rico, on the 14th and conducted war games exercises with the Atlantic Fleet. In the course of those operations, she visited the Dominican Republic as well as Guantanamo Bay and Santiago in Cuba. Later that month, Wainwright carried Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt; Brigadier General George Barnett, the Commandant of the Marine Corps; and the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission from Santiago to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Following that assignment, Wainwright conducted torpedo exercises, patrols, and power trials near Guantanamo Bay until the beginning of March.
She returned to Boston on 10 March for a short period in the Navy Yard. On 31 March, she departed Boston for Hampton Roads where she arrived on 2 April. The following morning, in response to the imminent threat of war with Germany, Wainwright began to search for submarines and to patrol Hampton Roads to protect the Fleet and naval bases. Two days later, other warships relieved her on patrol; and she anchored with the Fleet in the mouth of the York River. The next day, 6 April 1917, the United States entered World War I.
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