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USS Crowninshield

1919 Town-class destroyer

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ2336226
Source-derived summary

USS Crowninshield (DD-134) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy between World War I and World War II. She was named for Benjamin Williams Crowninshield. In World War II she was transferred to the Royal Navy where she was named HMS Chelsea, and subsequently to the Soviet Navy where she was named Derzky.

Construction and career

United States Navy

Crowninshield was launched 24 July 1919 by Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine; sponsored by Emily Crowninshield Davis, great-great-granddaughter of Benjamin Williams Crowninshield. The ship was commissioned on 6 August 1919 and reported to the Atlantic Fleet.

Crowninshield cruised along the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean, participating in 1921 in the fleet concentration in the Panama Canal Zone and Cuban waters. During this exercise she carried Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels from Key West to Guantanamo Bay for fleet maneuvers. From 14 November 1921 Crowninshield operated with 50 percent of her complement until placed out of commission in reserve at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 7 July 1922.

Recommissioned 12 May 1930, Crowninshield arrived at San Diego, California 4 April 1931 to join the Battle Force. She took part in fleet problems and exercises on the west coast, in Hawaiian and Caribbean waters; operated with Aircraft, Battle Force; conducted practice cruises to Canadian and Alaskan ports for members of the Naval Reserve; and spent from 15 July to 17 December 1934 in the Rotating Reserve. She was at San Diego between 30 October and 2 November 1935, for the Presidential Fleet Review and attended the ceremonies opening the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge in November 1936.

Editorial summary

“USS Crowninshield” enters the record as 1919 Town-class destroyer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Crowninshield, Town-class and destroyer can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA strong orientation record where physical form, institutional use and historical geography need to be read together. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1919, 1921, 1922, 1930—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Crowninshield, Town-class and destroyer.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“USS Crowninshield” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Crowninshield, Town-class and destroyer provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2336226. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1919, 1921, 1922 and 1930.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “USS Crowninshield”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow USS Crowninshield primary sources, USS Crowninshield archive and Crowninshield research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “USS Crowninshield”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from USS Crowninshield” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.