USS Wasmuth (DD-338/DMS-15) was a in the United States Navy following World War I. Namesake Henry Wasmuth was born c. 1840 in Germany. He enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on 11 June 1861. Ultimately attached to the Marine detachment of the sidewheeler Powhatan, Wasmuth took part in the assault on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, on 15 January 1865. During the battle, Ensign Robley Dunglison Evans fell wounded from a Confederate sharpshooter's bullet. Private Wasmuth picked up the seriously wounded young officer and carried him to a place of comparative safety-—a shell hole on the beach. Wasmuth stayed with Evans, ignoring the latter's urgings to take cover, until a sharpshooter's bullet pierced Wasmuth's neck, cutting the jugular vein. Within a few minutes, Wasmuth dropped in the edge of the surf and died. Evans later wrote: "He was an honor to his uniform." History Wasmuth was laid down on 12 August 1919 at the Mare Island Navy Yard, Vallejo, California and designated DD-338 on 17 July 1920. The destroyer was launched on 15 September 1920, sponsored by Miss Gertrude E. Bennet, stepdaughter of Lieutenant Colonel R. H. Davis, USMC, an officer on duty at Mare Island. Wasmuth was commissioned on 16 December 1921. Wasmuth was fitted out at Mare Island until 27 February 1922, when she sailed for Richmond, California, to commence her shakedown cruise. Operating off Sausalito and Mare Island, the new destroyer completed her trials on 14 March, putting into her builder's yard on that day for post-shakedown repairs. She sailed for San Francisco, California on 1 May and calibrated her sound signal apparatus at that port until the 4th, when she shifted to San Pedro. Wasmuth then spent the next month operating in connection with battleship torpedo practices, a duty broken on 7 May by dispatch service to San Diego. Returning to that port from San Pedro on 8 June, she commenced preparations for decommissioning soon thereafter. Placed out of commission at San Diego on 26 July 1922, Wasmuth remained in reserve for nearly eight years during the 1920s, when treaty restrictions and cuts in operating funds reduced the Navy's active seagoing forces. Recommissioned on 11 March 1930, Lt. Cmdr. Ingram C. Sowell in command, Wasmuth operated as a destroyer for the next decade, participating in an intensive slate of tactical exercises and maneuvers, varying that routine with upkeep and training. She also operated with the Battle