USS J. Fred Talbott (DD-156)
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| Career | 
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| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | 8 July 1918 |
| Launched: | 14 December 1918 |
| Commissioned: | 30 June 1919 |
| Decommissioned: | 21 May 1946 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap, 22 December 1946 |
| Struck: | 19 June 1946 |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 1,090 tons |
| Length: | 314 ft 5 in |
| Beam: | 30 ft 6 in |
| Draught: | 8 ft 8 in |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 35 kts |
| Range: | |
| Complement: | 101 officers and enlisted |
| Armament: | 4 4", 2 3"; 2.30 cal., 12 21" tt. |
| Motto: | |
USS J. Fred Talbot (DD-156), named for Joshua Frederick Cockey Talbott (1843-1918), Representative from Maryland Second District from 1879 to 1885, from 1893 to 1895 and again from 1903 to 1918, was a Wickes-class destroyer.
Talbot was laid down by the William Cramp and Sons Ship and Engine Building Company at Philadelphia in Pennsylvania on 8 July 1918, launched on 14 December 1918 by Mrs. Robert L. Bates, niece of Representative Talbott and commissioned on 30 June 1919, Commander T. G. Ellyson in command.
The new destroyer departed Newport, Rhode Island 10 July for the Mediterranean, where she acted as a station ship at various ports providing an element of stability in Europe during the first troubled months of postwar adjustment and reconstruction. Upon her return to the United States 21 June 1920, the ship took part in Neutrality Patrol duty on the East Coast and engaged in fleet exercises before decommissioning at Philadelphia 18 January 1923.
J. Fred Talbott recommissioned 1 May 1930, Lt C. H. Cobb in command, and immediately began shakedown training in Delaware Bay. For the 10 years that followed, the ship operated along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean engaging in antisubmarine training; fleet operations; and carrying out the many far-ranging duties of the United States fleet. She also helped to train reserves and midshipmen.
With the outbreak of the war in Europe and America's initial effort to protect its shipping while remaining neutral, J. Fred Talbott was assigned patrol duties in the waters off the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. Following America's entry into the war with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the ship took up convoy escort duties between New Orleans, Cuba, and the Canal, helping to protect the sea lanes and to move the vast amounts of men and materiel needed for victory.
Following an overhaul in Boston in January 1944, J. Fred Talbott sailed 13 February with her first transatlantic convoy, and, after her safe return from Casablanca, took up escort duties with convoys from Iceland southward into the Caribbean. Later in the year, after arrival 15 September, she was converted at New York and reclassified AG-81 25 September 1944. The ship arrived Port Everglades, Florida, 1 November to act as a target ship for torpedo bombers, continuing this important training service until the war's end.
J. Fred Talbott was decommissioned at Boston on 21 May 1946, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 19 June 1946 and sold for scrap to the Boston Metals Corporation of Baltimore in Maryland on 22 December 1946.
This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.