USS Charles Ausburn, a 1190-ton Clemson class destroyer built at Squantum, Massachusetts, was commissioned in March 1920. Originally intended to be named Ausburn, and launched as such in mid-December 1919, she received her definitive name a month before completion. When the Navy formally adopted its hull number system in July 1920, she was designated DD-294. Throughout her career Charles Ausburn was primarily employed in the Atlantic and Caribbean, though participation in large U.S. Fleet exercises took her to the Pacific at least once. The destroyer also deployed to Europe and the Mediterranean Sea in 1925-1926. A year earlier, in mid-1924, she operated in the North Atlantic in support of a flight around the World by U.S. Army aircraft. Another aviation-related assignment took place in the fall of 1923, when she was temporarily fitted to operate a seaplane, an early attempt to use smaller warships to take aircraft to sea. Following a decade of service, USS Charles Ausburn was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in May 1930. She was sold for scrapping in January 1931.