displaced when fully loaded. Parker had two steam turbines that drove her two screw propellers, and an additional pair triple-expansion steam engines, each connected to one of the propeller shafts, for cruising purposes. Four oil-burning boilers powered the engines, which could generate , moving the ship at the design speed of ; After sister ship failed to meet the design speed in her July 1913 builder's trials, Parker was outfitted with redesigned propellers, and exceeded the contracted speed in her trials in November, when she topped out at during runs off the Delaware Breakwater. Parkers main battery consisted of four /50 caliber Mark 9 guns, with each gun weighing in excess of . The guns fired armor-piercing projectiles at . At an elevation of 20°, the guns had a range of . Parker was also equipped with four twin mount torpedo tubes. Pre-World War I Parker was commissioned into the United States Navy on 30 December 1913 under the command of Lieutenant Commander C. P. Nelson. Parker was attached to the Torpedo Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet, operating off the Atlantic coast during the years of American neutrality in World War I. On 6 April 1914, Parker and sister ships and were exercising off the North Carolina coast, about off the Diamond Shoals lightship. An explosion ripped through the forward fire room on Aylwin, injuring three men. Benham loaded the three wounded sailors and sped to the naval hospital at Norfolk, Virginia, while Parker took on the remainder of Aylwins crew. One of the injured men died on Benham before landfall was made in Virginia; another died a short time later. Aylwin remained afloat but, unmanned, was towed into Norfolk by Parker and U.S. Navy tug . The crews of all three destroyers raised $250 to help defray funeral expenses for the widow of one of the men. In early April 1915, Parker and destroyer were temporarily assigned to patrol near the New York City Quarantine Station. There were concerns by Dudley Field Malone, the local port collector, that some of the interned German steamships at New York might try to slip out during a heavy snowstorm. As a part of these patrols, Malone discovered what The New York Times termed a "widespread conspiracy" intended to supply British warships outside U.S. territorial waters, in violation of the American neutrality in World War I. After participating in winter maneuvers in Cuban waters in