Fairfax

	

(DD-93: dp. 1,090; l. 314'6", b. 31'8", dr. 9'; s. 36 k.; cplr 100' a. 4 4", 2 3", 12 21" tt.; cl. Wickes)


	Fairfax (DD-93) was launched 16 December 1917 by Mare Island Navy Yard, sponsored by Mrs. H. 
George, and commissioned 6 April 1918, Lieutenant Commander S. C. Hooper in command.


	Fairfax arrived at Hampton Roads 6 June 1918 for convoy escort duty out of Newport News. She 
guarded convoys of troop transports to midocean meeting points with escorts who had come out of English and 
French ports to meet them. Fairfax also guarded convoys moving between coastal ports, and patrolled off the 
coast until 16 October, when she stood down Hampton Roads bound for Brest, France, escorting a troop 
convoy. On 18 October, she left her convoy to rescue 86 survivors of torpedoed USS Lucia, an NOTS ship, and 
on 27 October, arrived at Brest for patrol ant escort duty in European waters.


	On 3 December 1918, Fairfax arrived in the Azores to meet and escort to Brest, the transport George 
Washington carrying President W. Wilson to the Peace Conference. She sailed for home 21 December, 
reaching Norfolk 8 January 1919. Her post war operations along the east coast and in the Caribbean were 
broken in May 1919, when she sailed to the Azores to take up station as an observer of the historic first aerial 
crossing of the Atlantic made by Navy seaplanes. On 19 June 1922, she was decommissioned at Philadelphia, 
and placed in reserve.


	Recommissioned 1 May 1930, Fairfax operated primarily on training cruises for members of the Naval 
Reserve during the following 2 years, based at Newport, R.I., and Camden, N.J. On 12 March 1932 she sailed 
from Hampton Roads for San Diego, Calif., arriving 26 March. On the west coast, too, her primary duty was 
training reservists, but she also took part in gunnery exercises and fleet problems off Mexico, Central America, 
and the Canal Zone.


	Fairfax took part in the Presidential Review taken by F. D. Roosevelt in San Diego in March 1933, then 
sailed for the East coast, where she continued her reserve training duty. She also patrolled in Cuban waters, 
and in the summers of 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, and 1940 sailed out of Annapolis training midshipmen of the 
Naval Academy. Between October 1935 and March 1937, she served with the Special Service Squadron out of 
Balboa and Coco Solo, C.Z., operating primarily on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone.


	The destroyer joined in representing the United States Navy at the opening of the New York City 
World's Fair in April 1939, and after war broke out in Europe that fall, operated on neutrality patrol along with her 
training duties. On 21 November 1940, she arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she was decommissioned 26 
November, and transferred to Great Britain under the destroyers for-land-bases exchange agreement.


	The former Fairfax was commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS Richmond 5 December 1940. She 
arrived at Plymouth, England, 31 December 1940 to join the escorts sailing out of Liverpool in the Western 
Approaches Command. These ships guarded the movement of vital convoys through the most dangerous 
waters of their passage across the Atlantic. Between June and October 1941, she performed similar duty in the 
Newfoundland force, and from February 1942 through March, made the dangerous run to Murmansk. Her base 
for Atlantic escort duty between December 1942 and August 1943 was Greenock, Scotland. Richmond served in 
the Royal Canadian Navy, based at St. John's, Newfoundland, until December 1943, when with newer escorts 
available, she was placed in reserve in the Tyne. On 16 July 1944 she was transferred to the Russian Navy, 
with whom she served as Jivoochyi.