with the massive influx of desperate people fleeing the fighting; however, and the Americans furthermore feared for the safety of their people trapped in the war. McCully cabled a request to the State Department, asking that the United States be allowed to assist in the Evacuation of the Crimea. Not waiting for a response, he ordered Cdr. Alexander "Sandy" Sharp of the destroyer to load a group of refugees and stand out for Constantinople with a letter request to Admiral Bristol for more ships. With 550 Cossacks, women and children gathered from the Sebastopol docks, Sharp's destroyer stood out for Turkey. During the voyage, the Russians were spread out on the ship and ravenously wolfed down everything the navy cooks served up. Upon receiving the letter, Bristol gave emergency orders for the destroyers , , and to cease various operations in the Black Sea and immediately stand out for the Crimea to assist in the evacuation. The Americans nonetheless required additional ships and cabled for reinforcements including . Standing up the Bosporus from Constantinople on November 13, 1920, St. Louis rendezvoused with destroyer , and U.S. steamships Faraby and Navahoe, and the four vessels worked with other ships to rescue the Americans authorized by McCully to escape. Besides McCully's party, the ships pulled out U.S. consuls and their archives, representatives of the American Red Cross and YMCA, relief workers from other agencies, and approximately 1,400 Russian refugees from Sebastopol and Yalta in the Crimea, Novorossiysk, Russia, and Odessa. On the morning of November 14, the destroyers dispatched by Admiral Bristol from Constantinople arrived at Sebastopol to find hundreds of mostly Russian and French boats in the harbor, many of which were crammed to the gunwales with fleeing White Russians. Whipple, Lt. Cdr. Richard F. Bernard, commanding, stood by to evacuate selected individuals bearing passes from McCully. Whipple's main battery was trained out and manned at all times. Armed boat crews carried evacuees out to the ship while her landing force stood in readiness. As her last boatload pushed off from shore, Bolshevik troops reached the main square and began firing on the fleeing White Russians. Whipple was the last American vessel out of Sebastopol, towing a barge loaded with wounded White Russian troops. When she was beyond range of the Red guns, she turned the tow over to Humphreys. Passing Admiral McCully's destroyer, he bellowed from the bridge through a