HMCS St. Francis (I93)

The second Bancroft (Destroyer No. 256) was laid down on 4 November 1918 at Quincy, Mass., by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp.; launched on 21 March 1919; sponsored by Miss Mary W. Bancroft; and commissioned on 30 June 1919, Lt. Cmdr. Harvey S. Haislip in command.

Upon commissioning, Bancroft conducted her shakedown cruise and then joined the Atlantic Fleet for normal training evolutions. However, in less than five months, she was placed in commission, in reserve. With a skeleton crew embarked for maintenance purposes, the destroyer remained in a state of semi active unreadiness for a little more than 30 months. She descended to complete inactivity on 11 July 1922 when she was decommissioned and berthed with the reserve fleet at Philadelphia. She remained there for more than 17 years.

On 1 September 1939, Germany ignited World War II with its invasion of Poland. On the 6th, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a neutrality patrol to keep the war out of the western hemisphere. Since the patrols called for more warships than were then active with the Atlantic Squadron, Bancroft was refurbished and recommissioned on 18 December 1939, Lt. Ernest St. C. Von Kleeck, Jr., in command. Initially assigned to the West Gulf Patrol, based at Galveston, Tex., the destroyer continued that assignment for about nine months, to enforce the President's proclamation of United States' neutrality and to keep open warfare out of the western hemisphere.

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From the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, compiled by the Naval History and Heritage Command (Bancroft II (Destroyer No. 256)). A work of the United States Government, in the public domain.