USS Bainbridge was a 1190-ton Clemson class destroyer built at Camden, New Jersey. She was commissioned in February 1921 and served in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean areas until October 1922, when she steamed to the Mediterranean to operate near the then-troubled nation of Turkey. On 16 December 1922, Bainbridge saved nearly 500 people from the French transport Vinh-Long, which was burning in the Sea of Marmora near Constantinople, and act for which her crew was officially commended and her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander Walter A. Edwards, was awarded the Medal of Honor.

After returning to the United States in 1923, Bainbridge was assigned to the Scouting Fleet, which was stationed in the Atlantic but made regular visits to the Caribbean and occasionally passed through the Panama Canal for combined exercises with the West Coast based Battle Fleet. The destroyer patrolled off Nicaragua with the Special Service Squadron in 1927 and was employed at times for training Naval Reservists. She was out of commission between December 1930 and March 1932 and then spent more than a year in reduced commission as part of the Rotating Reserve. Bainbridge rejoined the Special Service Squadron in 1933 and, late in the following year, was transferred to the Pacific, where she was active until decommissioning in November 1937.

In late September 1939, soon after the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Bainbridge was recommissioned. Based in the Panama Canal Zone, she made Neutrality Patrols in that area until mid-1940, when she began operations out of Key West, Florida. During most of 1941 Bainbridge served in the North Atlantic, where she escorted convoys to and from Iceland as relations with Germany became increasingly hostile. Once war formally began in December 1941, she continued her escort and patrol work off the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. She was slightly damaged by an enemy mine off Chesapeake Bay in June 1942. In 1943 Bainbridge extended her reach across the ocean when she escorted several convoys between the U.S. and North Africa. In the middle of that year she was part of a task group, built around the escort aircraft carrier Santee (CVE-29), that sank several U-boats. No longer needed after Germany's surrender, USS Bainbridge was decommissioned in July 1945 and sold for scrapping at the end of November.

USS Bainbridge was named in honor of Commodore William Bainbridge (1774-1833), one of the leading figures of the early 19th Century U.S. Navy.