High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! USS Dickerson (DD-157) was a Wickes-class destroyer in the United States Navy, and was converted to a high-speed transport at Charleston, South Carolina and designated APD-21 in 1943. She was named for Mahlon Dickerson (1770-1853), Secretary of the Navy from 1834 to 1838. Dickerson was laid down by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Camden in New Jersey on 25 May 1918, launched on 12 March 1919 by Mrs. J. S. Dickerson and commissioned on 3 September 1919. Dickerson was decommissioned on 26 June 1922 and placed in reserve at the New York Navy Yard until recommissioned on 1 May 1930, served with the Rotating Reserve, was assigned to the Neutrality Patrol at Key West on 25 July 1940,