On 8 September 1923 the US Navy lost one and a half destroyer divisions – seven ships – in a mass grounding at Honda Point, California. This peacetime disaster had few equals at the time, and still remains one of the worst such disasters in US Navy history.
The ships turned east, supposedly into the Santa Barbara Channel, at 2100 hours. In reality the ships had were headed for the rocky shore due to navigational errors and unusual currents caused by the Tokyo earthquake of the previous week. The ships soon entered a thick fogbank, each vessel following the wake of the ship ahead. 5 minutes after the turn, Delphy ran ashore at 20 knots, quickly followed by other members of the squadron.
The ships were total losses. They were stricken from the Register, stripped of useable equipment and sold to a scrapper for $1,035. No salvage work was done, and the ships remain where they were wrecked.