The third USS Trippe (DD-403) was a in the United States Navy. She was named for John Trippe.
Operational history
Trippe was laid down on 15 April 1937 by the Boston Navy Yard, launched on 14 May 1938; sponsored by Miss Betty S. Trippe and placed in commission on 1 November 1939.
Trippe spent the remainder of 1939 outfitting at Boston. In January 1940, she visited Newport, Rhode Island, to take on torpedoes and Yorktown, Virginia, to load depth charges before heading for the Gulf of Mexico. Following shakedown training in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, she returned to Boston on 20 March 1940. After completing her post-shakedown overhaul, Trippe departed Boston on 24 June ultimately to join the Caribbean portion of the Neutrality Patrol. She voyaged via Hampton Roads to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she arrived early in July only to return north at mid-month for a two-day visit to Washington, D.C. On 26 July, Trippe entered San Juan once more to begin Neutrality Patrol duty in earnest.
For eight months, the destroyer roamed the warm waters of the West Indies to prevent the European belligerents from waging war in the western hemisphere. During that period, she escorted , with President Franklin Roosevelt embarked, upon a tour of bases in the Caribbean. She saw the President safely into Charleston, South Carolina, on 14 December and then headed for Philadelphia and quick repairs. After a two-day visit to Norfolk at the end of the first week in January 1941, Trippe steamed south to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where she conducted neutrality patrols until spring.
North Atlantic duty
On 21 March, the warship began a two-month overhaul at Boston. On 24 April, while Trippe continued repairs, President Roosevelt extended the Neutrality Patrol to the very edge of the German war zone. When Trippe emerged from her refit in May, she visited Norfolk and then trained out of Newport until early June. On 11 June, she joined the screen of for her first extended patrol in the North Atlantic. On 29 June, Texas and her escorts passed through the periscope sights of a U-boat. The puzzled German captain almost perpetrated an incident by attacking; but, unable to match Task Force 1's speed, he gave up the chase late that afternoon. Blissfully unaware of the danger, the battleship steamed on with Trippe and her sister destroyers. The following day, they ended their patrol at Newport.
Trippe continued patrolling out of Newport, first with Texas and then with , through July and the first fortnight in August. On 15 August, the warship shifted her base to Boston and Provincetown. On 25 April, she cleared Boston to escort to NS Argentia, Newfoundland. After more than a month of training and antisubmarine operations off Newfoundland, Trippe departed Argentia on 11 October in company with , , , , and seven other destroyers. After anchoring briefly at Casco Bay, Maine and patrolling the area between that port and Boston the warships headed for a mid-ocean rendezvous to relieve the Royal Navy escort of a westbound convoy. On her return voyage, Trippe parted company with the escort off Portland, Maine, and put into Casco Bay. On 9 November, she departed the Maine coast in the screen of , , and Quincy to meet another westbound convoy and escort it to the United States.
World War II
In mid-November, Trippe escorted Ranger south to the West Indies and screened flight operations conducted from that carrier in the vicinity of Trinidad until early December. She was returning north with the carrier on 7 December when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor jolted the United States into World War II. America's entry into the war, however, did not change Trippe's assignment. She continued to escort transatlantic convoys and to hunt U-boats. She stopped at Norfolk for a week and then headed for Newport on 10 December. Just before dawn on 16 December, an Army bomber approached her from the north and after making several passes dropped a stick of bombs and reported sinking a German destroyer in Block Island Sound. Trippe emerged unscathed the bombs exploded some 200 yards off her bow and continued on to Newport where she arrived that same day.