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The first USS ''Thatcher'' (DD–162) was a ''Wickes''-class destroyer in the United States Navy, later transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy as HMCS ''Niagara''. ==As USS ''Thatcher''== Named for Admiral Henry K. Thatcher, she was laid down on 8 June 1918 at Quincy, Massachusetts, by the Fore River Plant of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation; launched on 31 August 1918; sponsored by Miss Doris Bentley, the grandniece of Rear Admiral Thatcher; and commissioned on 14 January 1919, Lieutenant Commander Henry M. Kieffer in temporary command. On 25 January, Lt. Comdr. Francis W. Rockwell—who later commanded the 16th Naval District in the Philippines at the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific—assumed command. Following shakedown, ''Thatcher'' operated with the Atlantic Fleet into the autumn of 1919. During the transatlantic NC-boat flights in May 1919, the destroyer operated on picket station number 9—one of 21 stations strung out from Newfoundland to the Azores—between her sister ships ''Walker'' (Destroyer No. 163) and ''Crosby'' (Destroyer No. 164). Underway at sea, she provided visual and radio bearings for the flying boats as they passed overhead on their way toward Lisbon, Portugal. Upon completion of this duty, the destroyer—reclassified as DD-162 on 17 July 1920—resumed her routine training operations off the eastern seaboard before heading west in the autumn of 1921 to join the Pacific Fleet. She operated out of San Diego, conducting exercises and training cruises off the west coast until decommissioned at San Diego on 7 June 1922. ''Thatcher'' remained laid-up at San Diego through the summer of 1939. War broke out in Europe on 1 September 1939, when German troops invaded Poland. ''Thatcher'' was recommissioned at San Diego on 18 December 1939, Lt. Comdr. Henry E. Richter in command, and conducted shakedown and training evolutions off the west coast until transferred to the Atlantic the following spring. Transiting the Panama Canal on 1 April 1940, a month before the situation in Europe became critical when Germany began her blitzkrieg against France and the Low Countries, ''Thatcher'' subsequently conducted neutrality patrols and training cruises off the east coast and in the Gulf of Mexico through the summer of 1940. The European situation took a drastic turn with the fall of France in June 1940. British destroyer forces in the wake of the disastrous Norwegian campaign and the evacuation of Dunkirk found themselves thinly spread—especially after Italy entered the war on Germany's side. Prime Minister Winston Churchill appealed to the United States for help. In response, Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the transfer of 50 "over age" destroyers to the British in return for 99-year leases on strategic base sites in the western hemisphere. ''Thatcher'' was accordingly withdrawn from the Atlantic Squadron and her operations with Destroyer Division 69 for transfer to the Royal Canadian Navy, which had been allocated six of the "50 ships that saved the world," as these vessels came to be known. As such, ''Thatcher'' and her five sisters arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 20 September—the third group of the "flush deckers" transferred. Decommissioned on 24 September 1940, ''Thatcher'' was struck from the Navy list on 8 January 1941. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「USS Thatcher (DD-162)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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