the Chinese foreign office, while investigating the incident, expressed its profound regrets. Upshur remained on the Yangtze until 9 July, when she resumed routine operations—target practices and torpedo drills. For her tour on the river, the destroyer received commendation in the Secretary of the Navy's annual report, noted as being "especially serviceable in establishing radio communication along the river." Upshur conducted exercises in the Philippine Islands in the winter and in Chinese waters, off Chefoo, in the summer, with more training and "showing the flag" cruises in between. During her tour in the Asiatic Fleet, Upshur was reclassified DD-144 on 17 July 1920. After completing her assignment in the Far East early in 1922, the destroyer arrived back on the west coast in the spring and was decommissioned at San Diego on 15 May 1922 and placed in reserve. 1923–1941 Recommissioned on 2 June 1930, Upshur operated with the Battle Fleet and Scouting Force, first on the west coast and later on the east, until decommissioned on 22 December 1936 at Philadelphia. She was berthed in the Philadelphia Navy Yard until the autumn of 1939. Soon after the outbreak of World War II in Poland in September 1939, President Roosevelt declared the neutrality of the United States and ordered the establishment of a Neutrality Patrol off the eastern seaboard and gulf coast on 5 September. To augment the ships first assigned to this duty, the Navy began reactivation of 77 light minelayers and destroyers. Accordingly, Upshur went back into commission at Philadelphia on 4 October, a little over a month after Germany invaded Poland. Attached to the Atlantic Squadron of the United States Fleet, Upshur interspersed her routine training evolutions—battle practices, torpedo exercises, and tactical maneuvers—with patrols safeguarding America's neutral shores along the Atlantic and gulf coasts. Upshurs routine was broken briefly in December 1939. On 13 December, the North German Lloyd Line steamship Columbus slipped out of Veracruz, Mexico, in an attempt to reach Germany and slip through the British blockade. She had not reckoned with the Neutrality Patrol, however, that persistently shadowed the liner from the moment she stood out of the Mexican port. Upshur participated in the tracking and reporting of the steamer, the 13th largest merchant steamship in the world. Columbus ultimately met her doom on 19 December; she was scuttled when confronted by British destroyer . The cruiser , standing nearby, rescued the Columbus crew.