USS Moody (DD-277) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy in commission from 1919 to 1922 and from 1923 to 1930. She was named for Justice William Henry Moody. Construction and commissioning Moody was laid down on 9 December 1918 at Squantum Victory Yard of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation at Quincy, Massachusetts, and launched on 28 June 1919. She was commissioned on 10 December 1919. Operational history Assigned to the United States Pacific Fleet, Moody departed Boston, Massachusetts, on 9 February 1920, loaded torpedoes and ammunition at Newport, Rhode Island, and steamed via New York City, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Panama Canal to the United States West Coast, arriving at San Diego, California, on the 31st. She operated along the California coast through June 1920, and then departed San Francisco, California, on 1 July 1920 for Washington, where on 10 July 1920 she joined the cruise of United States Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, United States Secretary of the Interior John B. Payne, and Admiral Hugh Rodman, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, to Alaska. On an inspection tour of Alaskan coal and oil fields and looking for possible fleet anchorages, the cruise touched at nine ports including Sitka, Duncan Day, and Juneau, and lasted for nearly a month. Moody returned to San Diego on 31 August 1920 to operate off the California coast in training and in battle exercises for two months. She put into San Diego on 10 October 1920, remaining there and decommissioning on 15 June 1922. Moody recommissioned on 27 September 1923. Assigned to Destroyer Squadrons, Battle Fleet, the ship operated along the U.S. West Coast for the next 19 months, and then on 27 May 1925 departed Bremerton, Washington, for fleet exercises in the Hawaiian Islands. After operating from Pearl Harbor on Oahu and Lahaina Roads off Maui for a month, she departed Pearl Harbor on 1 July 1925 for the South Pacific Ocean, stopped at Pago Pago, American Samoa, and then made good will visits to Melbourne, Australia, and Dunedin and Wellington, New Zealand. Returning via Honolulu, Hawaii, to San Diego on 26 September 1925, Moody resumed operations along the U.S. West Coast operations into 1927, and made a voyage to Panama between February and April 1926. On 17 February 1927, Moody departed San Diego for tactical maneuvers with the United States Fleet in the Caribbean. Proceeding through the Panama Canal