USS Evans, a 1060-ton Wickes class destroyer, was built at Bath, Maine. She was commissioned on Armistice Day, 11 November 1918, and in June-August 1919 operated in European waters. After brief service off Central America, beginning in November 1919 Evans was based at San Diego, California, as part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. She was active along the west coast of North and South America until October 1921 and was placed out of commission at San Diego in late May 1922.

Evans returned to active duty in April 1930 and operated in the eastern Pacific until December 1930, when she began more than a year of Naval Reserve training service at New York. The destroyer went back to the Pacific in March 1932, serving there until the end of March 1937, when she was again decommissioned. The outbreak of World War II in Europe brought about her recommissioning in late September 1939. The following December Evans began neutrality patrols out of Key West, Florida.

In late September 1940 Evans steamed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to prepare for transfer to Great Britain as part of the destroyers for bases agreement. Decommissioned in October, she immediately joined the Royal Navy as HMS Mansfield. In service with the Royal Norwegian Navy between December 1940 and February 1942, she participated in a raid on Norway's coast in April 1941. The ship also had convoy escort duty in the North Atlantic, where on 16 October 1942 she rescued 38 survivors of a mined ship. During 1942 and 1943 Mansfield was part of the Royal Canadian Navy, escorting shipping in the vicinity of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. She was inactive after November 1943 and went out of commission in June 1944. The old destroyer was subsequently scrapped in Canada.

USS Evans was named in honor of Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans (1846-1912), who served actively as a U.S. Navy officer from the Civil War through the first decade of the 20th Century.