The sister-ship gunboats Wilmington (PG-8) and Helena (PG-9), both built by Newport News Shipbuilding and delivered in 1897, were designed for service in Chinese waters. They had relatively shallow drafts, 9 feet, and were equipped with tall, tubular “military masts” that incorporated a lightly armored conning station below a gun platform intended to mount up to four 1-pounder, quick-firing guns, to shoot downward at attackers along the high river banks. The 1,684- ton (full-load displacement) ships were 251 feet, 10 inches, long and had a maximum beam of 40 feet, 1 inch. The main armament of eight single 4-inch/40-caliber guns was disposed two side by side on both the forecastle and low main deck aft, and four behind armored embrasures on the main deck amidships. Four 3- pounder quick-firing guns also were carried, two between the amidships 4-inch guns and two on the forecastle, abreast the mast. The hull had a 1-inch armored belt amidships abreast the engineering plant—four coal-fired Babcock and Wilcox boilers providing steam to two 934-indicated-horsepower vertical, triple expansion reciprocating steam engines to produce speeds up to 15 knots.
As a result of rising tensions with Spain, the pair initially was assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron and based at Key West, from where, in July 1898, they were sent to blockade Cuban waters. On 18 July, they led an attack on Manzanillo, destroying eight Spanish gunboats and supply vessels in 20 minutes. The Helena sailed for the Philippines in November 1898, remaining in Asian waters until her disposal in 1932. On conclusion of the Spanish American War, the Wilmington was attached to the newly reconstituted South Atlantic Squadron. During March and April 1899 she voyaged 2,300 nautical miles up the Amazon River to Iquitos, Peru, then to Brazilian, Uruguayan, and Argentine ports before arriving at Manila on 21 January 1901.
From 1904 to 1917, the Wilmington's main area of operations was the Chinese river system. She escaped impending internment in China in May 1917 and patrolled Philippine waters until early 1919 before returning to the China Station. Sent home in June 1922 for layup and redesignated Unclassified Ship IX 30, the aging gunboat was refitted and reactivated in July 1923 as a U.S. Naval Reserve Force training ship for the Kentucky and Ohio regions. Through the 1930s, the Wilmington operated on the Great Lakes in the summer training reservists and was laid up in winter. She was renamed the Dover on 27 January 1941, and during November 1942, briefly was sent back to sea escorting convoy HF-42 from Halifax to Boston. She was then assigned to Commander, Eighth Naval District, at New Orleans, where, for the remainder of the war, she trained armed guard crews destined for merchant ship duty. Decommissioned on 20 December 1945 and stricken from the Navy on 8 January 1946, the Dover was sold for scrap in December 1946.
The Wilmington in Chinese waters late in 1916, wearing her original paint scheme of white hull and buff upperworks, was little changed from her original configuration except for a raised topmast to accommodate radio antenna wires.
The Dover at the end of her tour on the Great Lakes still was carrying 4-inch guns fore and aft, but with the amidships gun embrasures and most hull portholes plated over. The military mast had been replaced by a simple pole structure and the stack shortened and given an oval form. The 4-inch guns forward were replaced by a 5-inch/38-caliber gun in late 1942. At the end of the war, the 5-inch Mk 37 gun mount still was carried, along with a 4-inch/50-caliber Mk 12 mount, a 3-inch/50-caliber Mk 22 mount, two 20-mm Mk 4 antiaircraft mountings, and ten .30-caliber machine guns.