USS Walker (DD-163) - Fate

Fate

Designated DCH-1 on 11 July 1940, the vessel was based at the Destroyer Base, San Diego, and used for training exercises in formulating and evolving new damage control techniques. In the following year, as the Pacific Fleet's base had been moved from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, plans were made to tow DCH-1 (which had been stripped of propulsion machinery during the initial conversion work to YW-57) to the Hawaiian Islands. On 28 December 1941, damage control hulk DCH 1 (IX-44), formerly destroyer Walker (DD-163), while being towed from San Diego, California, to Pearl Harbor, by oiler USS Neches (AO-5), was cast adrift and scuttled by gunfire from Neches at 26°35′N 143°49′W / 26.583°N 143.817°W / 26.583; -143.817.