All six ships operated in the Atlantic or Caribbean until the U.S. entrance into World War I in April 1917, when all six were sent overseas to Queenstown, Ireland, for convoy escort duties. Several of the ships rescued passengers and crew from ships sunk by U-boats, and several had encounters with U-boats themselves; was torpedoed and sunk by in December 1917. All five surviving members of the class had returned to the United States by early 1919 and been decommissioned by June 1922. Between 1924 and 1926, four of the five (all but "Wadsworth") were commissioned into the United States Coast Guard to help enforce Prohibition as a part of the "Rum Patrol". They were returned to U.S. Navy custody between 1934 and 1936, and had all been sold for scrapping by 1936.