Ships
- USS Drayton (DD-366) Captain from 1 September 1936
Commander R. G. Pennoyer, Ralph Gilbert Pennoyer, was the first commanding officer of the destroyer Drayton. He took her into commission on 1 September 1936. The ship, DD-366, was a Mahan-class destroyer built by Bath Iron Works at Bath, Maine. She had been launched on 26 March 1936, with Miss B. E. Drayton, a great-grandniece of Civil War captain Percival Drayton, as sponsor.
Drayton was a fleet destroyer of about 1,500 tons, a little more than 340 feet long, with five 5-inch guns, torpedo tubes, and a speed well above 30 knots. Pennoyer’s work as her first captain was to take that new hull, her crew, and her machinery from the builder’s yard into regular service.
The opening months were spent working the ship up. Drayton made a shakedown cruise to Europe that lasted from October through 5 December 1936. She then completed final trials and acceptance before moving on to fleet duty.
In the summer of 1937 Pennoyer brought her from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Drayton sailed from Norfolk on 6 June and reached San Diego on 19 June to join the Scouting Force. On 4 July she put to sea again to join the search for the missing aviator Amelia Earhart, called at Pearl Harbor for maneuvers, and returned to San Diego on 30 July.
For the remainder of his tour, Drayton trained along the West Coast, in Hawaiian waters, and in the Caribbean, exercising with other ships of the fleet. Pennoyer stayed in command until 1 September 1938, when Lieutenant Commander Jesse H. Carter relieved him. Those two years covered the destroyer’s commissioning at Bath, her ocean crossing, and her first season as a working ship of the Scouting Force.