William Maxwell Wood - Honors

Honors

Dr. Wood was commended by Commodore Sloat, Secretary Bankcroft, and Senator Mallory, Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs in the Senate of the United States for his successful mission behind enemy lines in Mexico in 1846 and his communication to Commodore Sloat which enabled the US Navy to acquire California at the onset of the War with Mexico. He was posthumously honored in 1901 by The Society of California Pioneers, with his inclusion in the volume Portraits of Members of the Society of California Pioneers.

Wood's name is inscribed in one of the base stones of The Sloat Monument erected at the Presidio in Monterey, California in commemoration of the US Navy's Pacific Fleet taking possession of California in 1846.

Four U.S. Navy ships, have been named for Wood; but only two of them were completed and commissioned. The first named for him was the Clemson-class destroyer USS Wood (DD-317), built in California and commissioned at Mare Island. She was in commission from 1919 to 1930.

During World War II, two ships were named William M. Wood in his honor but were cancelled before they were built. The first, the Rudderow-class destroyer escort USS William M. Wood (DE-287), was cancelled in March 1944, as was the second, the John C. Butler-class destroyer escort USS William M. Wood, in June 1944.

The Gearing-class destroyer USS William M. Wood (DD-715), was built in Newark, New Jersey, and was commissioned at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She was in commission from 1945 to 1976. After serving in the Pacific on post-war Western Pacific patrols, she was transferred to the Atlantic Fleet in 1949 as the Cold War escalated. She was converted to a radar picket destroyer (DDR-715) in 1953, and was converted and modernized in 1964 to an all purpose destroyer with advanced sonar and submarine warfare weaponry. She patrolled the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean during the Cold War years, alternating operations between the Second Fleet homeported in Newport, Rhode Island, and Norfolk, Virginia, making 18 deployments with the Sixth Fleet including an extended deployment from 1972-1975 where she was homeported near Athens, Greece.

Her missions included aiding earthquake victims in Volos Greece in 1955; supporting Eastern Mediterranean US coastal operations during the 1956 War between Israel and Egypt, and during the Lebanese crisis in 1958; participation in the Cuban Quarantine-Blockade in 1962; the pursuit of the hijacked Venezuelan freighter SS Anzoategui in 1963; coastal operations off the Dominican Republic and evacuation of American citizens during that county's revolution in 1965; participation in the search for the USS Scorpion in 1968; shadowing the Soviet Mediterranean Fleet during 1970-71, including intelligence gathering on the new Moskva class Soviet Helo-Guided Missile Cruiser-Carriers, and special operations in the Black Sea; coastal support operations off Crete during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974; additional Black Sea operations during her extended 1972-75 deployment; and continuous escort and defense operations with US carrier task forces in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean.

By coincidence, the combined 42 years of service of the two completed destroyers which bore his name coincides approximately with Dr. Wood's 42-year U.S. Navy career.