USS Bancroft (DD-256)

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USS Bancroft (DD-256) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy. Named for George Bancroft, she was built at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, launched March 21, 1919, and commissioned June 30, 1919. After initial Atlantic Fleet duties, she spent several years in reserve and was decommissioned in 1922. Recommissioned December 1939, Bancroft served with the Atlantic Squadron on the U.S. East Coast until September 24, 1940, when she was decommissioned and transferred to Great Britain under the destroyer-land-bases arrangement. The ship became part of the Royal Canadian Navy as HMCS St. Francis (I93).

She arrived in the Clyde in January 1941 and joined convoy escort groups in the Atlantic, rescuing survivors of the steamship Starcrose on May 20, 1941, and escorting numerous convoys (ON 95, SC 85, ON 105, HX 197, ON 116, ON 121, SC 99, ON 147). In 1943 she served with Western Approaches and the Newfoundland Escort Force, and from 1944 she did training duties in Digby, Nova Scotia. Declared surplus on April 1, 1945, she was towed toward scrapping but sank after colliding with the collier Windward Gulf near Cape Cod on July 14, 1945; there were no casualties.