Eighteen Forrest Sherman (DD-931)-class destroyers were completed from 1955 to 1959 as the U.S. Navy’s first post-World War II general-purpose destroyers. Six remained essentially in their original gunship configuration throughout their active careers, which lasted into the early 1980s; eight others received major modifications under late 1960s budgets to improve their antisubmarine capabilities. The other four were converted as guided-missile destroyers, with the Decatur (DD-936) becoming DDG-31, the John Paul Jones (DD-932) DDG-32, the Parson (DD-949) DDG-33, and the Somers (DD-947) DDG-34- The ex-Decatur still serves as a self-propelled trials ship for self-defense systems; the unmodified Edson (DD-946) and Turner Joy (DD-951) are on display in New York City and Bremerton, Washington, respectively, and the antisubmarine conversion Barry (DD-933.) is open to the public at the Washington, D.C., Navy Yard. The others have been either scrapped or allocated for target service.
The Somers (DD-947) on trials in the Gulf of Maine on 25 March 1959. The 4,050-ton (full-load displacement), 418.5-foot ship displays the original class armament fit of three single 5-inch/54- caliber Mk 42 and two twin 3-inch/50- caliber Mk 33 gunmounts, two 24-round Mk 11 Hedgehog antisubmarine spiggot mortars, and a single depth charge rack. The Somers displays one of the first installations of the then-new triple Mk 32 torpedo tube mountings. After the first two, ships of the class had three feet of additional freeboard at the bow, and the final seven had the Mk 68 main battery gun director moved forward atop the bridge. Capable of 32.5 knots on 70,000 shaft horsepower, the ships could steam 4,500 nautical miles at 20 knots.
The Somers as DDG-34 in April 1968. A Mk 13 single-armed launcher for 40 Tartar (later, Standard SM-1) surface-to-air missiles replaced the two after 5-inch gunmounts, while a Mk 112 octuple launcher for ASROC antisubmarine missiles was located between the after stack and a large deckhouse surmounted by an AN/SPG-51C aerial target illumination radar. The Mk 68 director’s AN/SPG- 55B radar provided a second missile fire- control channel as well as controlling the remaining 5-inch gun. A tall lattice mast was added amidships to support the antenna for an AN/SPS-48 three-dimensional air-search radar, and a new quadripod foremast supported antennas for the AN/SPS-40E air-search and SPS-10 surface-search radars and the electronic warfare antenna array. The Mk 32 torpedo tubes were relocated to the 01 level forward of the pilothouse.
The Somers on 30 December 1997 at Port Hueneme, California. She is to be sunk this summer as part of the annual RIMPAC multinational naval exercise. Seen alongside the ex-Somers is the 800-ton, radio-controlled, self-propelled target craft MST-9301.