One Last Time
A veteran of World War II and the Korean War, the destroyer USS Preston (DD-795), in company with the guided-missile destroyer Berkeley (DDG-15) and destroyers Maddox (DD-751) and Fechteler (DD-870), sailed from Long Beach on 5 July 1968, bound for her fourth and final tour off the coast of Vietnam. Named for the precocious and ambitious Samuel W. Preston, a Canadian-born naval officer killed at Fort Fisher in the Civil War, the 24-year-old Preston was the sixth U.S. Navy ship to carry the name. Laid down on 13 June 1943 at San Pedro, California, by the Bethlehem Steel Co., Shipbuilding Division, and launched on 12 December 1943, the Fletcher -class destroyer was commissioned on 20 March 1944.
