“What’s a ‘Gleaves-class’ destroyer?” asks a shipmate from World War II’s DesRon 7 (which included USS Gleaves). “During World War II, we only heard of the Livermore class. And

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whatever happened to the Bristol class?”
   The evolution of the Benson and Gleaves (Livermore) classes perpetuated a pattern established with the 1500-ton classes, i.e., similar designs prepared by two sources, Bethlehem and Gibbs & Cox, with small numbers of ships authorized in each fiscal year.
   Built on a hull of the same dimensions as the preceding Sims class but with scantlings increased to carry an extra 50–60 tons of machinery, the major innovation of the concurrently-designed 1620-ton Benson (DD 421) and 1630-ton Gleaves (DD 423) was machinery arranged in two units—each unit consisting of a fireroom with its own stack and an engine room—to reduce the

The Bensons were built at Bethlehem yards in Quincy, Massachusetts, Staten Island, New York, San Francisco and San Pedro, California, and initially at three navy yards. Externally, these ships were readily identified by their “flat”-sided stacks.    Ships of the Gleaves class (initially known as the Livermore class because the design was standardized with Livermore, DD 429) were built at Federal, Bath, Seattle-Tacoma and five navy yards. They used Westinghouse, GE and Allis-Chalmers turbines and could be identified by their “round” stacks.    View a complete roster.

risk that a single torpedo hit could cripple a ship (a feature that leads historian John Reilly to classify these as the first “fourth-generation” American destroyers).
   At a glance, therefore, the Bensons and Gleaves appeared as two-stack versions of the Sims class. The streamlined sheer strake on the raised forecastle deck was the same, as was the bridge on all except the last 10 ships built at Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. Kearny, New Jersey, and the 10 ships built at Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding (see chart, above). While the new ships also carried two quintuple centerline torpedo tube mounts rather than the Sims’ quadruple mounts, this was not a recognition feature—and the only easy way of differentiating the two new classes from one another was that the Bensons had flat-sided stacks while the Gleaves’ were round.
   Eight ships were authorized in each of three fiscal years, 1938, ’39 and ’40. Four ships were initially ordered: DD 421–422 (the future Benson and Mayo) were designed and built by Bethlehem Quincy; DD 423–424 (the future Gleaves and Niblack) were designed by Gibbs & Cox and built by Bath Iron Works. Bethlehem, the low bidder, was awarded a contract to draw up detailed plans and to build the four remaining

Destroyer Squadron 7 1 October 1941 USS Plunkett, DD 431, Flagship Destroyer Division 13 USS Benson, DD 421 USS Mayo, DD 422 USS Gleaves, DD 423 USS Niblack, DD 424 Destroyer Division 14 USS Madison, DD 425, Flagship USS Lansdale, DD 426 USS Hilary P. Jones, DD 427 USS Charles F. Hughes, DD 428

ships from the FY 38 appropriation, DD 425–428.
   All these ships were expected to incorporate a proven turbine arrangement originated in the Mahan class—until Bethlehem, which had an excellent track record but no experience with this machinery, asked for design changes which, it claimed (and subsequent analyses confirmed), would prove equally efficient. While the Bureau of Engineering was displeased with this “bastard design,” it proceeded in light of the alternative of unacceptable delay. Thus, of the FY 1938 ships (DD 421–428), six were built to the Bethlehem (Benson) design and two (DD 423–424) to the Gibbs & Cox (Gleaves) design.
   Meanwhile, the Bureau requested a design change of its own—increasing temperature from 700° to 825° for follow-on ships from Gibbs & Cox, known during World War II as the Livermore class for the lead ship, DD 429. Bath, however, acted quickly enough to incorporate

Destroyer Squadron 11 1 October 1941 USS Roe, DD 418, Flagship Destroyer Division 21 USS Livermore, DD 429, Flagship USS Eberle, DD 430 USS Kearny, DD 432 USS Ericsson, DD 440 Destroyer Division 22 USS Gwin, DD 433, Flagship USS Meredith, DD 434 USS Grayson, DD 435 USS Monssen, DD 436

this change in its first two ships. Today, therefore, the entire class of Gibbs & Cox-designed ships is identified as the Gleaves class—beginning with all sixteen FY 1939 and 1940 ships (DDs 429–444), as Bethlehem’s follow-on bid to build more ships with its own machinery was rejected.
   These 24 ships, organized into Destroyer Squadrons 7, 11 and 13 (see boxes), might have been the end of orders for 1620- and 1630-tonners: for FY 1941, eight much larger destroyers were initially authorized—DDs 445–452, the first ships of the 2100-ton Fletcher class. But beginning in December 1940, as war approached and as it was foreseen that Fletcher production would not ramp up as rapidly as desired, repeat Gleaves (and, as needed for rapid mobilization, repeat Bensons) were authorized in three more groups, their hull numbers mingling with those for follow-on Fletcher orders.
   All these repeat ships were ordered with only four 5-inch/38s due to severe topweight problems with the initial ships. Thus differentiated,

Destroyer Squadron 13 1 October 1941 USS Buck, DD 420, Flagship Destroyer Division 25 USS Woolsey, DD 437, Flagship USS Ludlow, DD 438 USS Edison, DD 439 USS Bristol, DD 453 Destroyer Division 26 USS Wilkes, DD 441, Flagship USS Nicholson, DD 442 USS Swanson, DD 443 USS Ingraham, DD 444

they were launched as the Bristol (DD 453) class and, less the lead ship (already attached to DesRon 13) and Barton, were organized into Destroyer Squadrons 10, 12, and 14–19. This distinction also disappeared, however, when the first 24 Bensons and Gleaves were modified to match as follows (see also ARMAMENT):
   • Ships assigned to DesRon 7 landed their after torpedo tube mounts and added four .50 cal machine guns.
   • Ships in DesRon 11 (DesDiv 21, which remained in the Atlantic, and DesDiv 22, the first ships of the class deployed to the Pacific)—and DesRon 13 retained ten torpedo tubes but landed their No. 3 5-inch mount, while increasing their .50 cal armament to twelve guns.

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Twenty-seven Bensons and Gleaves were in commission at the start of World War II—then the US Navy’s most modern destroyers. Except for temporary assignment by Fletchers (e.g., at the North Africa landings in 1942) and Allen M. Sumners (e.g., at Normandy), they remained the US Navy’s workhorse destroyers in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters.

CONVERSIONS
Following the conclusion of operations in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, 24 were converted as destroyer-minesweepers (DMS) for operations in the Pacific: twelve as MinRon 20 in 1944, which served at Okinawa; twelve more in 1945, too late to see action before the end of the war.

LOSSES
Sixteen were lost during the war. Five (Meredith, Monssen, Laffey, Duncan and Barton) were sunk during the Guadalcanal campaign in 1942; two more (Aaron Ward and Gwin) were lost the next year in the Solomons. Germans accounted for six (Lansdale, Bristol, Corry, Glennon, Maddox and Beatty). Emmons was lost to suicide planes off Okinawa, Ingraham to an accident and Turner to a magazine explosion.
   Forrest, Harding, Butler and Shubrick (the first three having been converted as DMSs) were also damaged beyond repair at Okinawa.

DECORATIONS
Eleven were decorated for action in World War II, three (Hilary P. Jones, Plunkett and Woolsey) for action in the Mediterranean; one (Hobson) attached to an escort carrier task group in the Atlantic; two (Laffey and Buchanan) for action in the Solomon Islands, one (Bailey) for her attack at the Battle of the Komandorski Islands, and four minesweeper conversions (Rodman, Emmons, Macomb and Butler) for action at Okinawa.

POST-WAR
After World War II, most of the minesweepers remained in commission. Two unconverted ships, Nicholson and Woodworth, were retained for training before transfer to the Italian Navy in 1951. The others were mothballed.
   Some ships recommissioned for the Korean War. Many were sold to foreign navies, where some lasted in service into the 1970s. Lardner, sold to Turkey, was not retired until 1981.