J. Fred Talbott departed
Newport, Rhode Island on 10 July for the
Mediterranean Sea, where she acted as a station ship at various ports acting as US representation during reconstruction. Upon her return to the United States on 21 June 1920, the ship took part in
Neutrality Patrol duty on the
East Coast and engaged in
fleet exercises before her
decommissioning at Philadelphia on 18 January 1923.
J. Fred Talbott recommissioned 1 May 1930 and immediately began
shakedown training in
Delaware Bay. For the ten years that followed, the ship operated along the Atlantic coast and in the
Caribbean Sea engaging in
anti-submarine training; fleet operations; and carrying out the many far-ranging duties of the United States fleet. She also helped to train
reserves and
midshipmen. With the outbreak of the war in Europe, and the United States' initial effort to protect its shipping while remaining neutral,
J. Fred Talbott was assigned patrol duties in the waters off the Atlantic entrance to the
Panama Canal. Following the US entry into the war with the surprise
attack on Pearl Harbor, the ship took up
convoy escort duties between
New Orleans,
Cuba, and the Panama Canal. Following an
overhaul in
Boston in January 1944,
J. Fred Talbott sailed on 13 February with her first transatlantic convoy, and, after her safe return from
Casablanca, took up escort duties with convoys from
Iceland southward into the Caribbean. Later in the year, after arrival on 15 September, she was converted at
New York and reclassified
AG-81 on 25 September 1944. The ship arrived
Port Everglades, Florida, 1 November to act as a
target ship for
torpedo bombers, continuing this training service until the war's end.
J. Fred Talbott was decommissioned at Boston on 21 May 1946, stricken from the
Naval Vessel Register on 19 June 1946 and sold for
scrap to the Boston Metals Corporation of
Baltimore,
Maryland on 22 December 1946. ==References==