Under a Secretary of the Navy directive dated 27 May 1940, six Fletcher-class destroyers on order (DD-476-481) were to have their armament reduced to accommodate an aircraft catapult for an OS2U-3 Kingfisher seaplane. The ships also were to be fitted with a derrick for aircraft recovery and tankage on the main deck for some 1,780 gallons of aviation gasoline. The Leutze (DD-481), not commissioned until April 1944, was completed as a standard Fletcher, but the other five all had the catapult on completion. In practice, the derrick was found to be inadequate, and the ships were too small to use a sharp turn to create a sufficient slick of smooth water to aid in aircraft alighting. The ships also paid a severe penalty in armament, sacrificing one of their five 5-inch dual- purpose gunmounts and one of two quintuple 21-inch torpedo tube mounts to carry the catapult. None ever employed aircraft in a combat situation. The Pringle (DD-477), commissioned on 15 September 1942, launched and recovered her Kingfisher several times during a westbound Atlantic merchant convoy escort assignment in January 1943, but the aircraft gear had been removed by the time she departed for the Pacific in February. The Hutchins (DD-476), commissioned on 17 November 1942, kept the catapult only until January 1943, when it was removed by the Boston Navy Yard without ever having been used. The Stanly (DD-478) likewise had had the catapult deleted by the time she departed the Charleston Navy Yard at the end of December 1942. The Stevens (DD-479), commissioned on 1 February 1943, launched and recovered her Kingfisher 48 times during shakedown off the South Carolina coast before the catapult was removed at Charleston in July.
The Halford (DD-480), seen here off Port Jefferson, Washington, in April 1943 conducted three and a half months of aircraft and catapult trials out of Pearl Harbor starting in July, but the equipment was deleted in October at Mare Island Navy Yard before she departed for the Southwest Pacific. The catapult was mounted on the number 3 dual-purpose 5-inch gun position. It displaced the ship’s only twin 40-mm antiaircraft gunmount to a new location on the fantail, and the torpedo tube mount abaft the second stack was omitted. The aircraft derrick was stepped from a kingpost mounted to port, just abaft the after stack.
The Pringle (DD-477), in April 1943, showing the configuration of the five former aircraft-carrying Fletchers after removal of the catapult. The number 3 dual-purpose 5-inch gunmount and the after torpedo tube mount were restored, but the 40-mm mount remained on the fantail. In the space between 5-inch mounts 3 and 4, in place of the deckhouse surmounted by a twin 40-mm gun mount found on all others, was only a pair of single 20-mm guns, augmenting the eight others installed further forward. The Pringle was lost to a kamikaze off Okinawa on 16 April 1945, the only former catapult Fletcher to be sunk.
During 1944-45 refits, the catapult Fletchers were brought up to standard class configuration, and by war’s end the survivors all carried five twin 40-mm mounts and six or seven single 20-mm cannon. The Stanly (DD-478) was under repair at Mare Island at war’s end and completed repairs in November 1945, with two quadruple 40-mm mounts supplanting the forward torpedo tube nest; the ship was decommissioned less than a year later and was stricken in December 1970.