USS DOVER

I LOVE e-Bay! Really! I mean, how else could someone in Tennessee find, and purchase, a pitcher that had been aboard the USS Dover, a gunboat used in the 1940s? The pitcher measures about 5 inches tall, and is 3 inches in diameter at its base. The words “U. S. DOVER 1942” are embossed on its front, and it has a number of tiny little holes rusted through on its face and where the bottom meets the front side (it wouldn’t hold any liquid anymore!).



Of course, this all just piqued my interest about where all this little pitcher might have been, so I started digging. Turns out, the Dover didn’t start out with that name (not too unusual for ships). She was actually built in 1894 by the Newport News Shipbuilding Company, in Newport News, Virginia, and was commissioned on May 13, 1897 as the USS Wilmington, Gunboat No. 8.

The Wilmington measured 251’ 10” in length, she had a beam of 40’ 2”, a displacement of 1,571 tons, and a draft of 9’. She was equipped with eight four-inch gun mounts and four “three-pounders” (guns that were capable of firing three-pound shells). As her name befits, she was of the Wilmington class, although I was unable to find any information about this class. She was the 8th boat built by the shipbuilding company.

Post card showing USS Wilmington (PG-8), date and place unknown. Courtesy Darryl Baker.

She saw her first action during the Spanish-American War, in July of 1898, off the coast of Cuba. Just days into action, her crew learned of a communications cable connecting Santa Cruz del sur, Cuba with Jucaro on the Cuban island Isla de la Juventud to the west, and proceeding to that location, used a grappling hook to find and cut the cable.

Following the war, the Wilmington saw service in the South Atlantic Squadron, where she sailed to ports such as San Juan, Puerto Rico; Port-of-Spain, Trinidad; Venezuela; Georgetown, British Guiana; and Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana. In March 1899, she sailed up the Amazon River during the rainy season, arriving in Iquitos, Peru in April, where her crew was presented with three monkeys and a tiger cat by the Peruvians.

Leaving Peru, she sailed south to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Montevideo, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. During this run, she had trouble with the propeller shaft, which ultimately resulted in a drydock stay in Buenos Aires for some months.

After the shaft was repaired, she commenced on a tour of the Far East, culminating in her decommissioning in the Philippines on June 30, 1904. She was recommissioned two years later, and served off the China coast and other Asian ports of call until the start of World War I. Her duties during the war were concentrated on patrol duty in the Philippine Islands and China. After the war, she continued to tour in Asia until 1922, when she returned to Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s Navy Yard.

In July 1923, she joined the US Navy Reserve Force, 9th Naval District for the states of Ohio and Kentucky. She was stationed in Toledo and used as a training ship on Lake Erie, becoming inactive in the fall of that year, and later serving as a training ship for reservists.



USS Wilmington (PG-8) circa the 1930s or 1940s, steaming on the Great Lakes. Courtesy the Historical Collections of the Great Lakes.

On January 27, 1941, the ship was renamed Dover in preparation for her entry into World War II. In late 1942, she sailed to Quebec, where she was fitted with a 5-inch gun. She operated for some time in the northeast, then sailed to the gulf coast in January 1943. She was reassigned to the 8th Naval District in New Orleans, and served as an armed guard training ship throughout the remainder of the war.


USS Wilmington (PG-8) circa 1942 as the USS Dover (IX-30). Courtesy E. C. Lowrance, Jr.

On December 20, 1945, she was decommissioned, and was sold for scrap on December 30, 1946.

In March 1950, a small news article appeared in the Camden (New Jersey) Courier-Post:



U.S. Census records show that Mr. Warrington was a member of the USS Wilmington’s crew in 1900; he was most likely on the ship during the entire South American tour, from 1897 through 1901. Mr. Warrington was born in 1870, and was a career Navy man, with a final rank of Chief Master at Arms.

He returned to Camden in 1920, and lived with his mother until she passed away, Although he had married in 1916, his wife apparently died shortly after, as he was listed as a widower in the 1920 census. Mr. Warrington was buried at the Beverly National Cemetery on March 27, 1950.

So somewhere belowdecks in the photo above, my pitcher was sitting on a table in the mess hall, perhaps having just been in the hands of Chief Master at Arms Warrington!