for target practice soon thereafter, she returned to New London upon the conclusion of her exercises and operated out of that port into the autumn of 1932. After another period of routine patrols off the eastern seaboard, she operated with the Navy in Cuban waters, off Nueva Gerona, in September and October 1933, interrupting her scheduled target practices. Released from this duty on 6 November, she sailed north for New York that day, followed by a brief period in New London. The repeal of Prohibition in late 1933 obviated the need for the destroyer's law enforcement duty, and Welborn C. Wood was decommissioned once more at Philadelphia on 21 May 1934. Back in the Navy While the warship lay in reserve, she was reinstated on the Navy list with many of her sisters in Philadelphia's reserve basin as the world situation slowly worsened. On 1 September 1939, German forces invaded Poland, triggering treaty obligations for France and the UK and hence a casus belli for the Second World War. President Franklin D. Roosevelt swiftly ordered a Neutrality Patrol to sea, ostensibly to safeguard American coastlines. The Atlantic Squadron found itself hard pressed to meet the initial demands of the patrol and required additional ships. Accordingly, 77 light minelayers and destroyers on both coasts (San Diego and Philadelphia) were recommissioned for duty on the Neutrality Patrol to augment the units already at sea. On 4 September 1939, Welborn C. Wood was recommissioned at Philadelphia. She was fitted out for sea and soon sailed to join the Neutrality Patrol. The destroyer conducted these operations interspersed with accelerated training evolutions off the eastern seaboard and into the Caribbean and gulf regions. British destroyer forces had suffered heavily since the outbreak of war and urgently needed reinforcement. Accordingly, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill approached President Roosevelt and the Destroyers for Bases Agreement was established. As of 2005, no other U.S. Navy ship has been named USS Welborn C. Wood. As HMS Chesterfield Welborn C. Wood became one of the first of the 50 over-age destroyers to be transferred to the British government in return for 99-year leases on base sites in the Western Hemisphere as part of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement. She and the rest of her division, Destroyer Division 67, arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 6 September 1940. The outgoing US crew familiarised the incoming British crew over the few days