A Fine Little Vessel
Industrialist John N. Willys' yacht Isabel was on the ways at Bath (Maine) Iron Works when she attracted the Navy's attention as America entered World War I. Captain Ashley H. Robertson of the Boston Navy Yard deemed her "exceedingly desirable for patrol duty," adding that the vessel had "many of the characteristics of a torpedo destroyer."
Willys had offered his yacht to the government some time before but did not receive a response. When the Navy approached him in April 1917, it offered "a price based on the original cost and present condition," citing "National danger and the emergency which now exists for patrol boats." Willys responded that the price "would be all right if my boat had ever been used," but he protested that the Isabel was "a new boat, built so that it would be adaptable for the service of the government." Willys, however, was "willing to do what is fair" and parted with the ship for $611,553. The Navy assigned her the identification number SP-521 and earmarked her to serve as a destroyer.
The Isabel was commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard three days after Christmas 1917, Lieutenant Commander Harry M. Shoemaker in command, and sailed for France on 29 January 1918. Steaming by way of Bermuda and the Azores, the destroyer reached Brest on 20 February to begin escorting convoys alongside her built-for-the-purpose near-sisters. In a little under a month's time, she encountered the enemy. At 1050 on 18 March, while standing to the westward escorting the Rappahannock and the President Grant, the Isabel and the Reid (Destroyer No. 21) almost simultaneously spotted the German submarine UC-55 off Penmarche, France. The Reid opened fire as the boat submerged, following up with two depth charges; the Isabel dropped one. Both U.S. warships lingered in the vicinity for nearly an hour, but the UC-55 had evaded destruction and slipped away.
Ultimately, after doing her share of convoying—work that earned Lieutenant Commander Shoemaker a Navy Cross—the Isabel sailed for home on 16 December 1918, reaching Boston on 2 January. She remained inactive at Philadelphia until ordered on 25 April to Key West, Florida, to report to the commanding officer of the K-5 (Submarine No. 36) for temporary duty as tender to vessels on the Mississippi River. Sailing on 14 May, the destroyer steamed as far north as St. Louis, Missouri, pausing at all major ports on the Mississippi in the course of the cruise. She received orders in August to Rockaway Beach, Long Island, New York. She reported for duty supporting the NC-4 flotilla on 18 September, in the wake of the plane's successful transatlantic flight, and then cruised along the eastern seaboard and Gulf coast, from Maine to Florida. She returned to Rockaway Beach on 4 January 1920.
Decommissioned at Philadelphia three months later, the Isabel remained inactive while the Navy pondered her future employment (at one point it considered her for service as a tender for NC-class flying boats). On 17 July, in the fleet-wide assignment of alphanumeric hull numbers and standardization of nomenclature, she lost her designation as a destroyer, becoming PY-10. Considered as a replacement for the Scorpion (PY-3) at Constantinople, the Isabel was sent instead to the Far East. Resplendent in her new predominantly white color scheme, the overhauled Isabel was recommissioned on 18 July 1921 at Philadelphia. Two 3-inch/23-caliber antiaircraft guns had been installed in the place of two of her single-purpose 3-inch mounts, and her torpedo tubes landed. With Lieutenant Commander Frank Loftin in command, she sailed for the Far East a month later.
Designated as flagship for the Yangtze Patrol Force, first breaking the flag of Rear Admiral William H. G. Bullard, the Isabel received further modifications at Cavite, including a deckhouse aft. She served in that configuration until built-for-the-purpose river gunboats began entering service. Retaining her battery but with the after deckhouse removed, the Isabel became the "relief flagship" for the Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet, a role that she filled for the next 12 years.
Specifically chosen for a highly secret reconnaissance mission, her commanding officer, Lieutenant John W. Payne Jr., received a personal briefing from the Asiatic Fleet's commander, Admiral Thomas C. Hart, on 3 December 1941. The Isabel was, ostensibly, to search for a PBY Catalina lost off Japanese-occupied French Indochina. Enjoined to "fight the ship as necessary and . . . destroy [her] rather than let her fall into enemy hands," Payne was to approach the Indochina coast only under cover of darkness with running lights dimmed "to give [her] the appearance of a fishing craft" and report by coded messages Japanese ship movements "several hours after sighting."
"In bidding [us] goodbye," Payne later wrote, "the admiral wished us luck and said that he wished that he was going along as it would be a great deal more fun than what he was doing." The Isabel stood out of Cavite later that day with all excess topside weight removed and her motorboat exchanged for a pulling whaleboat. Provisioned and fueled to capacity and with additional life rafts on board, she retained only one "pre-arranged cipher" in lieu of her usual confidential publications. She encountered no other ships until 5 December, when she spotted a large dark gray vessel that flew no colors and seemed to be altering course to "keep out of close visual range."
The next morning, 6 December 1941, an Aichi E13A1 reconnaissance floatplane from the air unit of the Kamikawa Maru circled the Isabel at an altitude of 1,000 feet but stayed about 2,000 yards away. Recalled from her mission within sight of Cam Ranh Bay that same day, the returning Isabel received word that Japan had started hostilities toward the end of the mid-watch on 8 December (7 December east of the Date Line). After initial service escorting submarines through the minefields off Corregidor, the Isabel survived the destruction of the Cavite Navy Yard on 10 December.
Her subsequent voyage into early March 1942 resembled a naval Perils of Pauline as she providentially stayed one step ahead of the Japanese, escorting convoys—although lacking sound gear and, until overhauled at Surabaya, Java, depth-charge tracks—and picking her way through dangerous reef-studded waters. Covered by a Dutch Catalina flying boat, the Isabel rescued 187 survivors of the torpedoed and shelled Dutch ship Van Cloon off Surabaya on 7 February 1942 while avoiding one torpedo and driving off a larger adversary (most likely the Japanese submarine I-55) in the bargain. One of the last U.S. ships to leave Java, she ultimately reached Australia, where she operated as local escort and target for U.S. submarines operating out of Fremantle through the end of hostilities.
Although the Isabel had been earmarked for duty in the Philippine Sea Frontier, on 27 August 1945 the Seventh Fleet commander considered her in "poor material condition" and "not suitable for flag use." She departed Australian waters on 5 September and, after stops at Port Moresby, Manus, Majuro, Johnston Island, and Pearl Harbor, arrived in San Francisco on 26 October. An inspection board a month later recommended that she be decommissioned, stricken, towed to sea, and sunk. Deemed "not essential to [the] defense of [the] U.S.," the ship was decommissioned on 11 February 1946 and stricken 15 days later. The end came in less than a month's time, when she was broken up on 25 March.
Providence seems to have smiled on the Isabel, which never served her intended purpose as a pleasure yacht. When calamity befell the Allies in the dark early days of the war in the Philippines and Dutch East Indies, the plucky little yacht that had once been a destroyer emerged unscathed from the chaos. The down-east sturdiness of her construction, matched with the resourcefulness and hardiness of her crew when courage counted, had seen her through.