USS Perkins (DD-26)

USS Perkins (DD-26) was a modified Paulding-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War I. She was the first ship named for Commodore George H. Perkins.

Perkins was laid down on 22 March 1909 by the Fore River Shipbuilding Company, Quincy, Massachusetts, christened by Commodore Perkins' daughter Isabel Weld Perkins and launched from the Fore River on 9 April 1910. The "Perkins" was commissioned on 18 November 1910, Lieutenant Commander Joel R. P. Pringle in command.

Pre-World War I
After almost seven years of peacetime service with active and reserve destroyer squadrons, Perkins recommissioned on 3 April 1917, Lieutenant Frank M. Knox in command. Assigned to the second division of United States destroyer forces in Europe, a division which included USS Paulding (DD-22), USS Wilkes (DD-67), and USS Ammen (DD-35), she operated out of Queenstown, Ireland, from June into November 1917.

During this duty, she rescued survivors of Tarquah on 7 August, and escorted SS Bohemia from Saint Nazaire to Ireland and SS New York from Queenstown to Liverpool. In November 1917 she departed Ireland for New York, New York.

During the winter of 1917–1918, she underwent overhaul at Charleston, South Carolina. From March to December 1918 she operated out of Gravesend Bay, New York, on anti-submarine patrol and escort duty. She sighted German submarine SM U-151 off New Jersey on 2 June 1918. On convoy duty, she escorted various ships, including SS President Grant and SS President Washington, between Halifax, Nova Scotia and New York.

Entering the Reserve Fleet on 5 December 1919, she remained there until she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 8 March 1935, sold on 28 June, and scrapped.