USS Kalk, a 1060-ton Wickes class destroyer, was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. She was initally named Rodgers, but this was changed to Kalk at about the time of her launching in December 1918. The destroyer was commissioned in late March 1919 and helped provide route protection during the trans-Atlantic flight of the Navy NC seaplanes less than two months later. She deployed to Europe between July 1919 and January 1920. After her return, Kalk operated along the U.S. Atlantic coast until May 1922, when she went to the Philadelphia Navy Yard to prepare for inactivation.

Decommissioned in July 1922, Kalk spent the next eighteen years in reserve. She was recommissioned in June 1940 as the Navy increased its active strength in response to the war then burning through Europe. During the next few months she took part in Neutrality patrols out of Charleston, South Carolina. With the war situation becoming increasingly perilous, the United States agreed to trade fifty old destroyers to Great Britain, in return for basing rights in British possessions in the the Western Hemisphere. Kalk was one of these fifty ships. She was decommissioned in September 1940, transferred to the Royal Navy, and served for the rest of World War II as HMS Hamilton and, after being taken over by the Royal Canadian Navy, as HMCS Hamilton. The old ship was taken out of service in June 1945 and subsequently scrapped.

USS Kalk was named in honor of Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Stanton F. Kalk, USN, (1894-1917), who lost his life in the sinking of USS Jacob Jones in December 1917.