USS Lawrence, a 1190-ton Clemson class destroyer built at Camden, New Jersey, was commissioned in April 1921. Following initial operations in the Western Atlantic area, she deployed to the Mediterranean Sea in June 1922. The destroyer spent more than a year there and in the Black Sea, taking part in the effort to contain and relieve the problems resulting from the Russian Civil War and the conflict between Greece and Turkey. From late 1923 until early 1931 Lawrence mainly served with the Scouting Fleet in the Atlantic and Caribbean, with occasional transits through the Panama Canal to take part in exercises in the Pacific. She also made Naval Reserve training cruises and, in February-March 1927, was employed off Nicaragua while that nation was in turmoil.

Lawrence was out of commission at Philadelphia between January 1931 and June 1932. Based at San Diego, California, after mid-1932, she again went out of commission in September 1938. The outbreak of World War II in Europe brought her back into the active fleet in September 1939. The rest of that year, and nearly all of 1940, saw Lawrence operating in the Caribbean and Atlantic on patrol and training service. Returning to the Pacific in December 1940 and later assigned to the Sound School at San Diego, she began convoy escort work soon after the United States was brought into the Second World War late in 1941. During much of 1942 she shepherded shipping along the West Coast, steaming as far north as the Aleutian Islands. From September 1942 until the end of the conflict Lawrence provided patrol and escort services in the area of San Francisco, California. On 31 May 1944 she rescued nearly 200 men from the steamship Henry Bergh, which had gone aground in the nearby Farralon Islands. Sent to the East Coast in late August 1945, shortly after Japan had agreed to surrender, USS Lawrence was decommissioned in October 1945 and sold for scrapping at the beginning of October 1946.

USS Lawrence was named in honor of Captain James Lawrence (1781-1813), who lost his life while commanding the frigate Chesapeake in battle with HMS Shannon on 1 June 1813.