Underway again the following day, the warship sailed for the Azores to pick up passengers and United States-bound mail at Ponta Delgada before continuing on to New York.

In this case of "hit and run" on the high seas, the assailant remained unknown, since she scraped the destroyer's port side and steamed off into the night.

After repairs, the destroyer shifted to Brest in June and from there escorted George Washington as that transport carried President Wilson back home to the United States.

Halsey, who would win fame in World War II, later stated in his memoirs that Wickes was "the best ship I ever commanded; she was also the smartest and the cleanest."

As a wave of peacetime austerity swept over the United States, the Navy felt the "pinch" of decreased expenditures and the widespread antimilitary sentiment which cropped up in the aftermath of World War I.

During January and February 1932, the destroyer was attached to the Special Service Squadron operating in Central American waters and qualified for the Second Nicaraguan Campaign Medal.

In April 1932, two years after being recommissioned, Wickes reported for duty with Rotating Reserve Squadron 20 and subsequently shifted back to the Pacific.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt promptly directed that the Navy establish a "Neutrality Patrol" off the eastern seaboard, in the approaches to the Panama Canal and Guantánamo Bay, and at the two entrances to the Gulf of Mexico.

Transiting the canal the next day, the destroyer arrived at the Naval Operating Base (NOB), Key West, Florida, on 11 December and commenced neutrality patrol duty.

They shadowed belligerent merchantmen and warships of the British and Commonwealth navies searching for German freighters or passenger ships caught in or near American coastal waters by the outbreak of war.

After leaving Puerto Cabello, Wickes and her division mates visited St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, before joining DesDiv 65 at St. Eustatius, Dutch West Indies, on 6 February.

After formation steaming and exercises, Wickes arrived back at Guantánamo Bay on 9 February before shifting to NOB Key West on the 14th.

She departed from the latter port on 1 July to join the battleships Texas, Arkansas, and New York that afternoon and conducted simulated torpedo attacks upon them at night.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill appealed to President Roosevelt for assistance; and, during the summer of 1940, an agreement was worked out between the United States and Great Britain.

In return for 50 "overage" American destroyers transferred to the Royal Navy, the United States received leases, for a duration of 99 years, on strategic base sites stretching from Newfoundland to British Guiana.

On 9 October, Wickes departed Hampton Roads with DesDiv 64 and stopped at the Naval Torpedo Station, Newport, Rhode Island, soon thereafter.

The ships transited the Cape Cod Canal, en route to Provincetown, Massachusetts, and after stopping there briefly, pushed on for Halifax Nova Scotia, where they arrived on 16 October.

En route, Montgomery and the other of her sister ships in company swept through the scene of the one-sided naval engagement between the armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay and the German "pocket battleship" Admiral Scheer.

Montgomery found nothing, however, and after searching briefly for the German "pocket battleship"—with orders to shadow by day and attack by night—arrived at Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 11 November.

During the course of one of her early patrols, Montgomery rescued 39 survivors from the motor tanker Scottish Standard which had been torpedoed and sunk by the U-96 on 21 February 1941.

Montgomery was modified for trade convoy escort service by removal of three of the original 4-inch/50-caliber guns and one of the triple torpedo tube mounts to reduce topside weight for additional depth charge stowage and installation of hedgehog.

On 13 January 1942, the Panamanian-registered steamer SS Friar Rock was torpedoed and sunk by U-130 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland.