USS Simpson (DD-221/APD-27/AG-97) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy during World War II. She was the first ship named for Rear Admiral Edward Simpson. Simpson was laid down on 9 October 1919 by William Cramp & Sons; launched on 28 April 1920; sponsored by Miss Caroline Sterett Simpson, daughter of Rear Admiral Simpson; and commissioned on 3 November 1920. Service history Simpson conducted training exercises with the Pacific Fleet during her first year of service, including a cruise to Valparaíso, Chile. She then transited the Panama Canal on 12 December 1921, and after overhaul at Philadelphia, she sailed from Newport, Rhode Island, for the Mediterranean on 6 June 1922. Between 29 June 1922 and 26 February 1924, Simpson served as a unit of the United States Naval Detachment in Turkish waters under Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, protecting American interests during the unrest in the Near East following World War I. Simpson was involved in protecting United States citizens, and aiding the work of the American Relief Association in the Black Sea and rescued mainly hundreds of Americans after the great fire of Smyrna on 13 September 1922. After a tour of ports in the western Mediterranean and the English Channel, Simpson departed Southampton, England, on 1 July 1924 for overhaul at Norfolk, Virginia. She then underwent training in the Caribbean and on the United States West Coast before crossing the Pacific for duty with the Asiatic Fleet. Upon arrival at Chefoo, China, on 14 June 1925, Simpson entered the routine of the Asiatic Fleet, training at bases in Tsingtao and Chefoo in the summer and Manila in the winter, and visiting Chinese ports during the transit each way. During 1925, unrest in China increased, due to the growth in strength of the Kuomintang forces under Chiang Kai-shek and anti-foreign outbreaks at Shanghai and Canton. Destroyers were detached from the fleet to supplement the normal gunboat patrols on the Yangtze River and along the southern coast of China near Canton. Simpson rescued some missionaries at Deep Bay, China, on 2 and 3 July 1925, and during the next several years, carried out numerous patrols in Chinese waters protecting American lives and property. The destroyer was stationed at Nanking when Japan launched an air and sea attack on Shanghai at the end of January 1932, and she supported American diplomats in the southern Chinese capital during the critical