“I always felt it was the Fletcher class that won the war ...
they were the heart and soul of the small-ship Navy.”¹

In 1941, the US Navy began building a fleet of large destroyers, its first design to rival the Japanese “special type” destroyers that had entered service beginning more than a decade

Introduced in 1942, the 2100-ton Fletcher-class destroyers were the core of the destroyer force from 1943.

before. These 175 flush-deck “2100-tonners” became, “in retrospect … the most successful of all American destroyers: fast, roomy, capable of absorbing enormous punishment, and yet fighting on.” Thanks to postwar service in the US plus fourteen foreign navies, they remained a familiar sight around the world into the 1990s.

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   The fourth of June 1942 was a significant day for the US Navy. In the mid-Pacific, its aircraft sank four of Japan’s six front-line aircraft carriers while turning back the invasion fleet at the Battle of Midway. Meanwhile, at nearly the same hour seven time zones to the east, the first of the 2100-ton Fletcher-class destroyers was commissioned in Boston.
     Their design was a fine achievement, balancing ruggedness and seaworthiness, armament, speed and protection on a classically-proportioned 376½-foot flush deck hull. Known at first as

Reference: Friedman The Fletcher design permitted significant increases over preceding classes in hull, armament, machinery, ammunition, stores and fuel oil.

“US Destroyer No. 445” for the hull number of the lead ship, the design incorporated ten torpedo tubes in two quintuple centerline mounts plus five 5-inch/38 cal. dual purpose guns, anti-aircraft weapons and depth charges.
     At 2050 tons standard displacement and approximately 2900 tons fully loaded, the Fletchers were significantly larger than any preceding American destroyers. Authorized for fiscal year 1941, construction of the first ships was already under way when the United States entered the war. In an emergency program to expand capacity, some shipyards were upgraded and other new ones were brought on line. Eventually, eleven shipyards launched 175 ships over the next 32 months—the most numerous class of destroyer completed by any navy. They were also the first US destroyers fitted with radar as built.
     The first 25 ships were ordered 28 June and 1 July 1940 (the first day of the 1941 fiscal year), with DD 445 actually belonging to the 1 July group. Christened USS Fletcher, she carried over several design features from preceding classes, such as a rounded pilot house. Later emphasis on anti-aircraft defense led to a redesigned “square” bridge for improved all-around visibility,

Authorization by fiscal year. Click to view a complete roster

beginning with Brownson, DD 518. Thus there were two groups of 2100-tonners: 58 “high-” or “round-bridge” and 117 “low-” or “square-bridge” ships.

Construction (top) and disposition following World War II (bottom).

     Meanwhile, the Navy continued looking ahead. In September 1941, it requested studies for a destroyer with greater anti-aircraft capability. In May 1942, before the first Fletcher was even commissioned, it approved a six-gun ship in which the Fletchers’ five 5-inch single mounts were replaced with three 5-inch twins—the 2200-ton Allen M. Sumner class, with 20 per cent more firepower on a 14-inch wider Fletcher hull. By VJ Day, 67 Sumners—55 destroyers and 12 destroyer-minelayer conversions—plus 45 ships of a lengthened production variant, the 2250-ton Gearing glass, had commissioned with more under construction. Together, these classes dominated the destroyer force over the next 25 years.
     As the first big ships to appear and because there were so many of them, however, the Fletchers rank as the signature US Navy destroyer class of the Pacific war, where the earliest ones saw action in the nighttime surface battles in the Solomon Islands, many fought at Leyte, and all completed in time for fleet escort and shore bombardment assignments and the notorious anti-kamikaze radar picket duty at Okinawa. While 19 were lost and six damaged beyond repair, 44 earned ten or more battle stars, 19 were awarded Navy Unit Commendations and 16 received Presidential Unit Citations.

References: Bauer and Roberts, Friedman, Raven, Hearn One hundred seventy-five Fletcher-class destroyers from eleven builders were placed in commission between 4 June 1942 and 22 February 1945.

     Some 2100-tonners served in Korea and some even in Vietnam. Thirty-two were transferred to the navies of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Spain, Taiwan and Turkey. By 1971, all ships remaining in the US Navy had decommissioned but not until 2001 was Mexico’s Cuitlahuac, the former John Rodgers and the last active Fletcher, retired. There has been talk of returning her to the United States as a museum ship but her future appears uncertain.
     Four Fletchers have been preserved on public display. In Greece, the former Charrette, renamed Velos (“Arrow”), is a popular attraction. In the United States, The Sullivans in Buffalo, Kidd (beautifully restored to late-World War II configuration) in Baton Rouge, and Cassin Young, berthed next to frigate USS Constitution at the Boston Navy Yard, Charlestown, Massachusetts, are open to the public.