USS Mc Cook (DD-252) - As USS McCook

As USS McCook

Named for Roderick S. McCook, she was laid down 10 September 1918 and launched 31 January 1919 at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation; sponsored by Mrs. Henry C. Dinger; and commissioned 30 April 1919, Lieutenant Commander G. B. Ashe in command.

Following shakedown, McCook was assigned to Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet. She operated along the east coast until decommissioning at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 30 June 1922. She remained in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet until recommissioned 18 December 1939. The next year McCook was designated for exchange under the Destroyers for Bases Agreement with Great Britain. Steaming to Halifax, Nova Scotia, she arrived 20 September 1940. Decommissioned on the 24th, she was transferred to Great Britain on the same date, but due to manpower shortages in the Royal Navy, she was retransferred immediately to the Canadian Navy and commissioned as HMCS St. Croix (I81). Following the Canadian practice of naming destroyers after Canadian rivers (but with deference to the U.S. origin), St. Croix was named after the St. Croix River forming the border between Maine and New Brunswick.