sighted the distinctive wake of the periscope of a submarine running on a parallel course, but in the opposite direction. Trippe dropped depth charges, but without "visible results", and continued on to rendezvous with an eastbound convoy. That night, she dueled with another adversary — the sea. In a raging storm, waves carried her starboard waist gun platform overboard. Trippe, however, successfully shepherded her convoy into Quiberon Bay, France, made repairs quickly, and resumed her grueling routine. Through the final year of the war, Trippe and her sister ships slowly bested the enemy. Convoys of merchant ships carried troops and supplies to France, where the armies of the Allies grew steadily. By the fall of 1918, they reached a point of overwhelming superiority over those of the Central Powers. On 11 November, the day of the signing of the armistice, Trippe was in port at Queenstown. Just over a month later, she cleared that Irish port, refueled at the Azores and Bermuda, and returned to Boston on 3 January 1919. After six months of operations along the eastern seaboard, the destroyer entered the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 23 July for preinactivation overhaul. On 6 November 1919, Trippe was decommissioned and placed in reserve at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Inter-war period Trippes inactivity lasted five years. By 1924, Prohibition had spawned a thriving traffic in smuggling alcoholic beverages. The Coast Guard's small fleet, charged with stopping the illegal importation of alcohol, was unequal to the task. Consequently, President Calvin Coolidge proposed to increase that fleet by 20 of the Navy's inactive destroyers, and Congress authorized the necessary funds on 2 April 1924. Coast Guardsmen and Navy yard workers overhauled Trippes hull, stripped her of depth charge gear and torpedo tubes, and removed one of her four guns. On 7 June 1924, Trippe was transferred to the Treasury Department; and, on 24 June, she was placed in commission as Trippe (CG-20), Lieutenant Commander John H. Cornell, USCG, in command. For the next four years, the former Navy destroyer operated along the northeastern coast out of New London, Connecticut, as a cutter of the Coast Guard's "rum patrol." Trippe was placed in reduced commission at New London on 5 January 1929. That October, she was moved to Stapleton, New York. From January to March 1930, she was overhauled at the New York Navy Yard. After a month of gunnery exercises off St. Petersburg, Florida, she