Retrospective: the Forrest Shermans

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Many thousands of miles passed under the keel of the destroyer Forrest Sherman (DD-931) in the time between these pictures. The one on top was taken in November 1955, just prior to her commissioning. The bottom view is from 1981, a year before her decommis­sioning. She and her 17 sisters served essentially a quarter of a century each and performed a diverse variety of duties, many of them unglamourous but all necessary in a Navy that was moving from the post­World War II era to today’s time of global commitments. In essence, these destroyers constituted a transition class to serve as a bridge between the small, all-gun destroyers and the big guided missile ships of the present. Almost all of the Forrest Shermans have been decommissioned and enjoy a quiet retirement; they leave behind a legacy of service and a warm spot in the memory of many a destroyer sailor.

For the generation of Navymen who grew up in the small, mass- produced tin cans of World War II, the USS Forrest Sherman (DD-931) and her sisters were big—seemingly too big to be called destroyers. There were also relatively few of them, only 18 in the class altogether, compared with scores in the wartime classes. But these big ships were also fast—powered by the earliest of the 1,200-pound steam plants in the U. S. fleet. And they were adaptable, as evidenced by the variety of modifications instituted over the course of their long careers. As the lone class of all-gun destroyers commissioned between the end of World War II and the end of the Vietnam War, the DD-931s were an important stepping-stone in the transition to the cruiser-size, gas-turbine-powered Spruance class of today. Above all, the Forrest Sherman-class ships were versatile and dependable and thus called upon for a wide range of operational duties in the course of active service lives of approximately a quarter century each. Many of today’s destroyermen got their first tastes of sea duty in these fine warships.

The Forrest Sherman class played an important part in surface war­ship development in the U. S. Navy. Although smaller in numbers than the Fletchers (DD-445), Allen M. Sumners (DD-692), and Gearings (DD-710), as shown in Table 1, the class was nonetheless noteworthy in that it:

► Enabled the Navy to maintain some surface warship building momen­tum during a period of lean budgets.

► Established a design readily adaptable to the Navy’s first guided mis­sile destroyers and construction techniques applicable to succeeding generations of surface warships.

► Introduced into the fleet in significant numbers the 5-inch/54 dual­purpose gun, which would become the preeminent destroyer weapon for naval gunfire support and antisurface warfare.

► Provided an austere, yet capable multi-mission escort for the fast carrier task groups.

► Proved the efficacy of the lightweight, high-pressure steam plant still used for propulsion of seven aircraft carriers, as well as numerous guided missile destroyers, cruisers, and frigates.

► Demonstrated exceptional versatility, through conversion of four of the class to bona fide guided missile destroyers and the enhancement of the antisubmarine warfare capability of eight others.

Design Evolution

In 1944 the Navy began its quest for the “ultimate destroyer,” a term

Commander Daniel Felger is a surface warfare officer with extensive experi­ence in 931-class destroyers, mine­sweepers and a cruiser. He served as executive officer of the Jonas Ingram (DD-938) from 1975 to 1977 and he directed the display ship project, Barry (DD-933) at the Washington Navy Yard from 1983 to 1984. Commander Felger is the author of Engineering for the Officer of the Deck, (Naval Insti­tute Press, 1979), and the Proceedings article “The 1200 Pounders: Prognosis Guarded,” April 1974. He currently is employed by the BDM Corporation, in the Washington, D. C., area.

used by Dr. Norman Friedman in his design history U. S. Destroyers. At its outset, the proposed ship was to be an enlarged Gearing, displacing about 4,400 tons fully loaded, with 80,000 shaft horsepower and 5-inch/54 guns. In the early post-World War II years, the Ship Characteris­tics Board (SCB) replaced the old General Board in the role of recommending characteristics for submission to the Chief of Naval Operations and Secretary of the Navy. At least in early planning, the designers were preoccupied with Pacific-type theaters as the predicted operational en­vironment for the new destroyer, based on World War II experience. For this and other reasons, design proposals increased in size and cost, despite goals to the contrary.

The eventual result was construction of five ships so costly and so large that the late Admiral Forrest P. Sher­man, CNO from 1949 to 1951, refused to refer to them as destroyers. These five ships were the destroyer leaders, which included the USS Norfolk (DL-1) at 5,600 tons stan­dard displacement and the smaller Mitscher (DL-2)-class ships, with standard displacements of about 3,650 tons each. The Norfolk was commissioned on 4 March 1953 and the USS Wilkinson (DL-5), last of her class, on 29 July 1954.

Powered by 1,200-psi steam propulsion plants, the DLs were less than paragons of ship availability—the period of commissioned service for the Norfolk, the Willis A. Lee (DL-4), and the Wilkinson was slightly more than 15 years each—but for the Forrest Sherman class to evolve, the destroyer leaders had to evolve first. That evolution began with the requirement for fast destroyers.

In testimony delivered to the Bureau of the Budget on October 23, 1947, the subject was a new type destroyer and the issue was speed:

“During World War II the 2200 Ton DD hampered the fast battleships and carriers in both good and bad weather. In the former they did not have sufficient speed margin to permit changes of formation or dispo­sition expeditiously. In the latter they caused the for­mation to slow to an unwarranted extent in order to prevent damage. To provide an effective fast task force escort under most conditions of weather (and having not less than four new type gun mounts), it will be necessary to increase the size of the present DD’s to about 3650 tons standard displacement.”

Speed was just one requirement. Retired Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr., remembers:

“Following the war there were all sorts of require­ments and lessons learned to incorporate. There was all sorts of pulling and tugging ... to get those features and requirements in a new destroyer. In 1947 we were all given permission to come in with a complete laun­dry list. Admiral Wright [Rear Admiral Jerauld Wright] was presiding over the SCB when people came in with those wish lists, and during one conference he re­marked, ‘Admiral [Chester] Nimitz said that if he gave the operators everything they wanted, we’d have to put them in a ship the size of the new Montana (BB-67)- class battleship.’ Then Admiral Wright said, with a twinkle in his eye, that Admiral Nimitz had added, ‘You can have what you can get into a CLAA-size [antiaircraft cruiser] hull.’

“The Norfolk was the result ... a hermaphrodite ... a little bit of everything and not much of any of them. Then the Mitscher-dass DLs evolved. As a group, the DLs would have serious engineering prob­lems, including water problems and boiler tubes melt­ing. And they were expensive ships. The building of that class had not quite been completed when Washing­ton said, ‘All right—what the type commanders have shrunk down to in a requirements list is the destroyer we’ll build.’ ”

The product of the reduced requirements was the For­rest Sherman. At 2,800 tons standard displacement, she was smaller than the Mitscher class. She was also slower than the type commanders really wanted, but with 33-plus knots from a 1,200-psi, 70,000-shaft horsepower plant, had enough speed to keep up with the fast carriers. Her design endurance was fair—4,500 nautical miles at 20 knots. In gunnery, the rate of fire from three 5-inch/54 barrels topped the firing rate of the six 5-inch/38 guns of the Gearing while greatly surpassing the older destroyer’s guns in range. The class’s seakeeping ability was un­matched by all earlier destroyers. And when compared with the considerably more costly but only marginally more capable DLs, the Forrest Sherman class was austere and thus more affordable.

The keel of Forrest Sherman, the lead ship of the class, was laid on 27 October 1953 at Bath Iron Works. The ship was commissioned on 9 November 1955. Building yards and dates of the 18 ships of the class are shown in Table 2.

The Forrest Shermans were the last all-gun destroyers to enter the fleet until the vastly larger Spruance-dass

Building Yards:

Bath                          Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine

Beth Q                       Bethelehem Steel, Quincy, Massachusetts

Ingalls                       Ingalls, Pascagoula, Mississippi

PSB&D Puget Sound Bridge and Dredge Co., Seattle, Washington

Hull number DD-934 was unofficially assigned to a former Japanese warship. DD Numbers 935 and 939 were assigned to ex-German warships.

warships nearly two decades later. The DD-931 class emerged at a time when some senior Navy planners had begun to think of destroyers more as defensive, screening- type warships than mixed offensive-defensive men-of- war. One prominent Navy committee examining long- range shipbuilding and conversion options in 1955 even opined that “the general purpose destroyer as such may fade from the scene.”

Admiral Arleigh A. Burke became CNO in August 1955. His push of the Polaris program for submarine- launched ballistic missiles was of extreme strategic impor­tance, but he also sought to strengthen the Navy’s tactical advantages. Admiral Burke wanted missiles on surface warships including destroyers, and he wanted proven sys­tems that would support those missiles. Faced with austere budgets for shipbuilding and conversion, such as the slightly more than $1 billion finally approved for fiscal year 1957, Admiral Burke also wanted to keep shipyards working. Admiral Burke explains:

Admiral Arleigh A. Burke, the “destroyerman’s

• destroyerman,” as Chief of Naval Operations from 1955 | to 1961, was an instrumental force in maintaining the

5 momentum of shipbuilding during austere budget years s for the Navy. Here he addresses the officers, crew, and

• guests at the commissioning of the Forrest Sherman on 9 1 November 1955.

“Money was very, very tight. One of the tough deci­sions I had to make—any of the CNOs has to make—is what’s affordable. ... It was obvious that we could have missiles, but we had to go slowly. We needed a larger ship to prove the propulsion plant and other platform capabili­ties. . . . The Shermans gave us that shipbuilding capabil­ity and momentum when we needed it. [They] demon­strated both the potential and proof for missiles. It’s important to build ships, but it’s equally important to know how to build ships. The goal is to build at least two or three a year so you don’t lose that shipbuilding capabil­ity, that expertise. You can do that with destroyers.” By the time Admiral Burke was deciding how many of the new destroyers to seek, the first ships of the class were about to enter the fleet. Because they incorporated so many improvements over their war-built predecessors, it is worth examining the characteristics of the new ships in some detail.

Propulsion Plant

Experiments with a 1,200-pound steam propulsion plant began as early as 1939. The USS Dahlgren (DD-187), fitted with two Babcock and Wilcox 1,200 psi, 950° F. boilers and a General Electric geared turbine installation, completed trials in 1940. The report concluded that such a propulsion system was “entirely feasible and urgently re­quired.” The advantage of the increase in steam pressure was that it produced a greater amount of shaft horsepower for a given size engineering plant.

The next tests with advanced propulsion systems in­volved a Gearing-class destroyer commissioned in 1952, the USS Timmerman (DD-828). Two separate propulsion systems were installed for simultaneous evaluation, one at 875 psi and one at 2,000. Yet a third experimental installa­tion generated electricity at 400 Hertz, rather than the stan­dard 60 Hz. As an experimental ship, the Timmerman was ultimately a victim of too many radical concepts attempted in one engineering plant. Then came the Norfolk and Mit- scher classes, using more conventional arrangements. The Forrest Shermans, used an even more conventional 1,200 psi plant and achieved a degree of engineering reliability which considerably exceeded that of the DLs.

The engineering plant was arranged in the basic fire- room/engine room/fireroom/engine room configuration, with two boilers in each fireroom. DDs 937, 938, 943, 944 and 948 had Babcock and Wilcox boilers, while the rest of the class had Foster-Wheeler boilers. The drive to reduce the weight and size of the 1,200 psi propulsion plant had resulted in correspondingly smaller water vol­umes than in the older 600 psi plants. This required auto­matic feedwater control and minimum reaction times by engineers attempting to control feedwater system casual-

The Forrest Sherman is shown with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean in 1960. Like the famous Fletcher (DD- 445) of World War II, the Forrest Sherman had more guns aft than forward. She was one of the few ships of the class not to lose 5-inch guns during mid-career conversions.

ties. Accordingly, designers “moved” the deaerating feed tank, feed booster pumps, and main feed pumps into the firerooms of 1,200 psi warships.

Engine room layout consisted of a high-pressure and low-pressure/astem turbine combination with its associ­ated reduction gear; two 500-kilowatt turbo-generators with their associated switchgear; a lubricating oil service system; separate condensing plants for the main engine and each of the turbogenerators; a seawater distilling unit; and the main engine throttle and monitoring station. (DDs 931, 932, and 933—the first of the Bath ships—had Westinghouse turbines; the remainder of the class had General Electric installations.) Propulsion and electrical plant main control was normally located in the forward engine room, where split-plant or cross-connect actions were initiated. Steaming with one boiler supplying both main engines in cross-connected operation, a Forrest Sherman could make 20 knots in calm seas. Split-plant operation on two boilers resulted in a capability of 27-plus knots. Four boilers were required for the destroyer’s maxi­mum speed.

Combat Systems

The 5-inch main battery of the Forrest Sherman was superior in quality to the 5-inch main batteries of either the five-gun Fletcher or six-gun Gearing. In early years of operation, however, the reputation of a DD-931 as a “gun destroyer” suffered because the warship did not have as many guns as its predecessors.

The Midway (CV-41)-class aircraft carriers were the first ships to receive 5-inch/54 caliber guns. The Mark 42 guns of the Forrest Sherman were superior to the Mark 39 type of the Midway because of the former’s automatic breech mechanism, automatic ammunition feed mecha-

u. s. na'A

Table 4 CruiserlDestroyerlFrigate Space Allowances

Class/Year                         Square Feet per Man

ⁿⁱsm, correspondingly higher rate of fire, and the greater ^ruggedness and responsiveness of the drive mechanism. Table 3, derived from Jane’s Fighting Ships, illustrates quantitative differences in the destroyer main batteries.

Arrangement of the Forrest Sherman’s main battery— °ue gun forward and two aft—more nearly resembled that °f the Fletcher class (two single mounts forward, three ^aft) than the Gearing class (two twin mounts forward, one ^aft). This configuration suited the DD-931s’ antiair war­fare (AAW) and naval gunfire support missions and re­sulted in improved performance in a seaway over that of Gearing-class destroyers. The positions of the primary ^and secondary gunfire control directors were not the same °n all ships of the Forrest Sherman class, but each ship could engage two targets simultaneously in antiair and ^antisurface warfare or suppress counter-battery fire while Performing gunfire support.

In the original configuration, each Forrest Sherman ^also had two twin 3-inch/50 open mounts, one forward ^and one aft. The class departed from long-time destroyer hadition in that no torpedoes were installed for surface engagements.

The antisubmarine warfare suite provided a blend of the °ld and the new. Homing torpedoes were the primary Weapons. (ASROC [antisubmarine rocket] was not yet out °f its developmental stage; moreover, ASROC would have displaced one of the 5-inch guns.) Hedgehogs were Provided as a balance between a secondary, although in this case an extremely limited-capability, antisubmarine Weapon and a halt to additional growth of the ship. A depth charge (stem rack) capability was retained.

The new aspect was the AN/SQS-4, the U. S. Navy’s first major postwar sonar. Lower in frequency than the QHB “searchlight” sonar of World War II, the SQS-4 had ^a nominal detection range of 10,000 yards in active search, which was nearly twice that of its predecessor’s. The SQS-4 also gave Forrest Shermans the capability of maintaining close contact on one target while simultane­ously searching for others. SQS-4 also had a passive capa­bility. During the course of periodic overhauls during their careers, all ships of the DD-931 class eventually received file lower frequency SQS-23 sonar in place of the SQS-4. This increased their nominal active search detection ^ranges to about 20,000 yards.

Habitability_________________

Compared with today’s most modem U. S. warships, ⁽he habitability standards of the Forrest Sherman class were minimal. But contrasted to earlier destroyers, habita­bility aboard the DD-931 class was consistent with its nickname, “Cadillac of the Fleet.” Shipboard spaces as­sociated with personnel include those used for berthing, medical purposes, sanitation, food preparation, messing, stores, administration, services, and recreation. Table 4 shows the growth trend in the habitability of U. S. surface warships.

That “habitability improvement” involved more than just square footage. Living spaces on DD-931 were air- conditioned. Crew members had individual bunk lights and better stowage for personal items. The enlisted mess­ing compartment was located on the main deck with the galley adjacent—no more cold food and spills. Food ser­vicemen no longer had to perfect moves that an all-pro halfback would admire while struggling to move large pans of food down a ladder to the serving line in heavy weather, as sometimes happened with the older destroy­ers. Even “standing around” was better; the crew’s mess line could form outside the messdecks in good weather, and within the skin of the ship when the weather was foul.

Master Chief Machinist’s Mate Charles J. Duncan, former Master Chief of the Naval Surface Force, U. S. Atlantic Fleet, advanced from fireman apprentice to chief petty officer on board a Gearing (DD-710)-class destroyer before serving in the USS Jonas Ingram (DD-938). Con­trasting the two classes, Master Chief Duncan recalls, “Habitability on the DD-931 class was head and shoulders above the older destroyers. That helped morale, helped retention. And morale tended to be good aboard the 931 class.”

Seakeeping

Architects designed the Forrest Sherman class to per­form well in a seaway. Operators generally agreed that their ships did. That was one conclusion reached during a broad examination begun by the Naval Ship Systems Command on the relative seakeeping merits of surface warships of the U. S. and Soviet navies. The examination was launched after a destroyer squadron commander in the Mediterranean in 1967 noted that when his World War 11-built ships often took green water over their bows and spray on their bridges while making speed in head seas, comparable-sized Soviet warships often did not.

The evaluation process included computer simulations, at-sea observations, and operators’ responses to an exten­sive questionnaire developed by the systems command. Unclassified information incident to the examination was reported in the May 1983 issue of Naval Engineers Jour­nal. The authors noted: “Since all U. S. cruisers, destroy-

With their aluminum superstructures and consequent low centers of gravity, the ships of the class, such as the Rich­ard S. Edwards (DD-950) shown here, were especially noted for their seakeeping ability. The hull form of the ships was highly rated, as were its “proportions, water- plane shape, fullness of sections, freeboard, and flare.”

ers and frigates have a similar type of hull form, the seakeeping characteristics and combat system perfor­mance of U. S. ships in head seas tended to be directly related to ship size. Large ships were reported by opera­tors to have better seakeeping performance than small ships . . .”

Then the authors addressed the Forrest Sherman class specifically: “The relatively short DD-931 Class was rated much higher than would be expected based on ship size alone . . . The DD-931 has a good hull form for seakeeping: Analyses conducted by the David W. Taylor Naval Ship Research and Development Center indicated that the DD-931 has one of the most highly rated hull forms of all U. S. Navy ships from the standpoint of seakeeping, including its proportions, waterplane shape, fullness of sections, freeboard and flare.”

The Forrest Sherman-class destroyer’s freeboard for­ward, flare and shape of its hurricane bow all combined to reduce deck wetting forward to a degree not enjoyed by most other destroyers. Yet there were differences within the class: the Barry (DD-933) would have a more sharply raked bow than others to accommodate her bow-mounted sonar; the Decatur (DD-936) and the following seven ships would get an additional 3 feet of freeboard at the bow, tapering down to the original sheer line at the for­ward 5-inch gun mount; and the Hull (DD-945) and the last six destroyers would have even more freeboard for­ward—enough so that some naval publications would list

them as a separate destroyer class by virtue of their bow design.

In addition to the performance in a seaway, DD-931s ^were generally considered to be shiphandlers’ ships. Cap­tain Russell S. Crenshaw, the author of Naval Shiphand- [‘ⁿ8 (Naval Institute Press, 1960) and the first command- teg officer of the Forrest Sherman, began compiling notes °n shiphandling shortly after he reported aboard the USS Maury (DD-401) as an ensign in 1941. In terms of her °verall characteristics, Captain Crenshaw remembers DD- ^31 as “The finest ship I ever had anything to do with.” Speaking of shiphandling, he says, “She was good, good hke the Fletchers were good, because they didn’t carry all that weight forward like the Gearings. Forrest Sherman Wasn’t very fast, but she was faster than many. Maybe a little tender in a quartering sea, but nevertheless a good ^sea boat.”

Construction_______________________________

In addition to other ship design aspects, the Forrest Sherman class brought the fleet a new construction prac- hce. The widespread use of aluminum above the main deck enabled designers to reduce the topside weight de­voted to structures, thereby striking a better balance be­tween requisite ship stability and optimum placement of sensors and combat system components. The challenge of minimizing topside weight to preserve stability while opti­mizing sensor performance and firing arcs continues to this day.

Aluminum offered a high tensile strength-to-weight ^ratio and relative imperviousness to the sea environment, h was affordable. Its susceptability to penetration was a recognized tradeoff which would later be addressed by the development of Kevlar and other types of modern armor. (The fact that under some conditions aluminum can melt ^and burn—demonstrated in the USS Belknap [CG-26] col­lision in 1975 and contributing to the loss of British war­ships during the 1982 Battle of the Falklands—was not generally appreciated.) Design, construction, and bonding techniques largely solved the potential problem of dissimi­lar metals where the aluminum structure joined the steel of (he main deck, although this condition is still monitored °n applicable warships.

Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr., who served during the 1970s as Commander in Chief U. S. Atlantic Fleet, was (he first commanding officer of the USS Barry when she Was commissioned in 1956. He remembers her as provid­ing one of his most satisfying tours of duty in the Navy. Even so, Commander Kidd, as he was then, encountered an early drawback:

“The first three ships at Bath [the Forrest Sherman, John Paul Jones, and Barry] were built without expan­sion joints in the deckhouse. I recall sitting across the wardroom table and listening to the Chief of the Bureau of Ships say, ‘We didn’t put in expansion joints be­cause you won’t need them.’

“Subsequent to that, Barry was under way in a storm in the North Atlantic. I was in the sea cabin dur­ing the night, when a report sounded like a cannon shot! I ran to the messdecks . . . The longitudinal stringers in the overhead there looked like a taffy pull! When we got back to port, . . . standing on the dock were Admiral Burke, Rear Admiral [John C.] Daniel— ComDesLant—and the Chief of the Bureau of Ships. They took over the wardroom. I was not privy to what was said. But the class got those expansion joints.”

Detailing the incident further, Admiral Kidd noted that the CNO’s special interest in the DD-931 class continued, even as newer warships entered the fleet. He similarly credits Admiral Daniel, Admiral Burke’s successor as Commander Destroyer Force Atlantic Fleet, with a per­sonal involvement and strong leadership that addressed problems of the class:

“The Forrest Shermans were commissioned with GUNAR on the after 5-inch/54 mount. [A self- contained fire control system mounted with its associ­ated gun, the operability of GUNAR would have per­mitted a DD-931 class to engage three targets simulta­neously with director-controlled fire.] GUNAR worked great—until the second round. It simply was not capa­ble of taking the shock. Admiral Daniel, an ordnance PG [postgraduate] and gunner himself, was on board us for a week, helping us work the problem. Finally, he said, ‘Take it off.’ But that was our only disappoint­ment in the ordnance suite.”

In addition to the expansion joint requirement, two other major design problems surfaced in the three initial ships built by Bath. The more difficult to solve— problems associated with their propulsion turbines/power

• AN/SPS-48
• Single MFCS
• Mark 13

Launcher

• ASROC
• 100-200 tons

train installations—proved particularly frustrating to the captains and crews of all three ships. The issue centered around initial direction to the shipbuilder concerning the turbines to be used in the new destroyer’s 70,000-shaft horsepower plant. Indications that the turbines selected were not rugged enough came early. Eventually heavier turbine blading and shrouding were used, but the process involved required trials, retrials, and long intervals be­tween.

Admiral Kidd recalls: “That first year there was only one set of spare turbines. None of the ships could schedule to get under way on trials until a set of spares was at Bath. There was a special flatcar stationed at Bath to take a defective turbine back to the manufacturer as soon as it could be removed when a ship returned from trials. You have no idea of the number of months we sat alongside the pier. And that was before shakedown trials for any of the ships.”

Crenshaw had to deal with a second problem affecting speed. It was also noted early but restricted to the lead ship of the class, Crenshaw’s Forrest Sherman, and therefore much more easily solved. This situation concerned vibra­tions resulting from the flow pattern around the ship’s twin rudders at flank speed. He remembers that, “She shook like hell. But David Taylor Naval Ship Basin fixed that by having each rudder angled in six degrees toward the centerline, and the design was changed for the rest of the ships.”

Conversions

When the ships of the DD-931 class were designed, their 5-inch/54 gun batteries gave them the antiair fire­power needed by top-of-the-line escorts for carrier task groups. Within five years of the lead ship’s commission­ing, however, the air threat had grown in both numbers and quality. Guided missile ships—most utilizing 1,200 psi propulsion and other systems tested and proven at sea by the Forrest Shermans—were beginning to enter the fleet to counter the threat. But the number of missile launchers programmed for the near term was too few. Accordingly, in January 1963 the Secretary of Defense outlined a plan which included the conversion of all DD- 931 s into guided missile ships armed with Tartar missiles. DLs were also to be included in the program.

The program did not fulfill its ambitious original goals because the Tartar system did not proceed as rapidly as desired and because the Navy asked for improved air de­tection capabilities for the Forrest Sherman-class conver­sions in their prospective DDG roles. The end result was the conversion of four DD-931s (and two DL-2s) as shown:

McCain

Conversion to DDG-31-34 (also called Decatur-class DDGs in some publications) gave the respective destroy­ers enhanced antiair and antisubmarine capabilities. But each surrendered a large measure of its firepower for sur­face warfare and naval gunfire support. Major additions resulting from conversion included:

Sophisticated, powerful 3D radar Half the missile target track- illuminator capability of DDG-2 System used by some of DDG-2 class

Firing arcs similar to DDG-2s Resultant increase from conversion

Deletions included both after 5-inch/54 guns and the Mark 56 (secondary) gunfire control system.

Eight other ships of the class received significant anti­submarine warfare upgrades during less costly conver­sions in the late 1960s. ASROC replaced Mount 52, the upper aft 5-inch gun; this location gave the primary ASW battery a firing arc of 200 degrees, centered on the stern. Stowage was provided for two complete launcher reloads

VSS Barry (DD-933) VSS Davis (DD-937) VSS Jonas Ingram (DD-938)

VSS Manley (DD-940)

^ln a deckhouse forward of the launcher. The ships were lengthened 6 feet to accommodate the AN/SQS-35 indepen­dent variable depth sonar mounted on the fantail. These ‘ASW Mods” retained their secondary gunfire control system. With two gun mounts and two gunfire control systems available, they still had good capabilities for anti­air warfare, surface warfare, and gunfire support. The ships converted were as follows:

USS Du Pont (DD-941) USS Blandy (DD-943) USS Morton (DD-948) USS Richard S. Edwards (DD-950)

Ship conversions invariably spark questions regarding *he relative success of the product. One aspect worth men­tioning is that if the Forrest Sherman had not been such a capable, versatile warship, she would not have been a con­version candidate at all.

Of the two conversions, those that received ASW mod­ernization retained general destroyer war-fighting capabil- Hies. Each ship could still engage two targets simultane­ously with gunfire. A AW conversion gave each of its four ships greater capability in the desired area at the expense °f gunnery. Moreover, DDG 31-34 could not engage two "bird targets” simultaneously unless the SPG-53 radar of the gun fire control system was assigned to one of the targets. DDG 31-34’s AN/SPS-48 radar gave each ship detection capabilities superior to those of the DDG-2 class and equal to those of the Leahy (CG-16) and Belknap (CG- 26) cruisers. But the navy tactical data system (NTDS) had been ruled out on conversion as being too expensive,

so information produced by the superior three-dimensional radar of DDGs 31-34 had to be exchanged with other task group ships by standard radio procedures.

An example of the limitations resulting from AAW con­version occurred during the Vietnam War. The Charles F. Adams (DDG-2) class performed either surveillance duties in the Tonkin Gulf or naval gunfire support. With only one gun available, DDG 31-34 were largely restricted to sur­veillance operations.

On the Line

When all the planning, designing, building, testing, and training are completed for a class of warships, the final proof of their capabilities and effectiveness comes during fleet service. The Forrest Sherman and her 17 sisters per­formed their missions capably over nearly three decades of service, bridging the period from the post-World War II Navy to that of today. A listing of some of the operational highlights for the class over those years is a review of the history of the uses of the U. S. Navy. For the most part, the DD-931s did their job out of the spotlight of public attention, but the wide range of tasks which they carried out—in combat, in crisis response, in emergency situa­tions, and in showing the U. S. flag—demonstrated their usefulness and value to the Navy. A ship-by-ship rundown provides evidence of some of the contributions of the class:

Forrest Sherman (DD-931)

• As one of the Navy’s newest ships, the Forrest Sher­man represented the service at the inaugural of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in January 1957. The ship moored at the Washington Navy Yard and was open to visitors as part of the celebration in the capital.
• In April of the following year, the destroyer was di­rected to proceed at full speed to Caracas, Venezuela, after Vice President Richard Nixon’s car was attacked by stu­dents. The ship arrived and patrolled in international wa­ters off the coast until the incident ended.
• The first deployment, in 1958, was an around-the-world cruise which included patrol duty in the Taiwan Strait and the rescue of four downed Marine aviators 120 miles from Hawaii.

John Paul Jones (DD-932/DDG-32)

• In 1956, making the most of her name, the ship visited Kirkcudbright, Jones’s birthplace in Scotland. The crew presented gifts to the museum in the village, which still considered Jones a ne’er-do-well American raider who had stolen the local silver.
• In 1962, she led a column of 40 destroyers in a naval review at Norfolk, Virginia, and Atlantic Fleet weapons demonstration for President John F. Kennedy.

Mid-career modifications beefed up the antiair and anti­submarine capabilities of some ships of the class, at a cost of removing 5-inch gun mounts. On the opposite page is the John Paul Jones (DDG-32) with a missile launcher and boxy deckhouse aft; at left, the upgraded Morton (DD- 948) features an ASROC (antisubmarine rocket) launcher on the 01 level.

• During the decade of the Sixties, the ship was involved in three astronaut recovery missions.

Barry (DD-933)

• One of three ships of the class involved in support of landings by Marines and Army airborne units at Beirut, Lebanon, in July 1958. Forces had been requested by Lebanon’s president, who feared an internal armed rebel­lion. Altogether, three U. S. carrier task groups, including 25 destroyers, participated in the operation, which ended in October that year with the withdrawal of U. S. forces.
• In the autumn of 1962, the Barry was one of eight DD- 931-class ships included in Task Force 136, which im­posed a quarantine on Cuba in response to evidence that Soviet ballistic missiles had been installed on the island. The quarantine was successful as the missiles were re­moved without the need for invasion of Cuba or other hostilities.
• The ship was assigned a home port in Athens, Greece, in 1972 as part of a forward-deployment program to main­tain the operational effectiveness of the fleet at a time when it was shrinking in numbers.

Decatur (DD-936/DDG-31)

• Participated in the NATO exercise Strikeback in the fall of 1957 and visited ports in Scotland before returning to her home port of Newport.
• In late 1959, the ship made a deployment which ranged from the Arctic Circle to the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean, via the Suez Canal and included operations as part of the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean.
• In 1961, as part of the fledgling space program, the Decatur made the first recovery by a U. S. ship of an unmanned spacecraft which had orbited the earth.
• In early 1968, she joined the U. S. naval task force which made a show of force off North Korea following the capture of the intelligence ship Pueblo (AGER-2).

Davis (DD-937)

• After the U. S. intelligence ship Liberty (AGTR-5) was attacked and severely damaged by Israeli aircraft and tor­pedo boats in the Mediterranean in June 1967, the Davis proceeded at full speed to aid and defend the ship. Once alongside, medical and damage control personnel from the destroyer went aboard the Liberty to help care for wounded and to begin repairs.
• In 1968, the Davis was assigned to act as an armed escort for a sonar test ship, the USNS Sergeant Joseph E. Muller (T-AG-171), while she was operating off Cuba. The mission was to prevent another incident like the cap­ture of the Pueblo earlier in the year.
• In 1972, the Davis departed the East Coast for a routine deployment to the Mediterranean. Because of the situation in Vietnam, however, her destination was changed while at sea, and the ship began a 32-day nonstop transit around Africa. While providing gunfire support off Vietnam in

As gun platforms, the Forrest Shermans often were called upon to test and evaluate new weapon systems, such as the Phalanx radar controlled system with 20-millimeter Gatling gun, capable of firing up to 3,000 rounds per minute, shown here in 1977 on the Bigelow (DD-942).

August, an in-bore explosion occurred in a 5-inch gun, blowing 2 feet off the barrel and injuring four men. Jonas Ingram (DD-938)

• Named for the World War II South Atlantic Force com­mander who enhanced U. S. relations with many South American nations, the ship upheld the Admiral Ingram's reputation by participating in a number of the annual UNI- TAS antisubmarine warfare exercises with South Ameri­can navies.
• In 1966, the, Jonas Ingram was the first U. S. warship to visit Egypt after the revolution which overthrew King Fa- rouk in 1952.
• The ship rescued 44 merchant seaman and recovered six bodies of the crew after the freighter Saudi was abandoned in heavy seas in the Gulf of Aden in 1973.

Du Pont (DD-941)

• The ship was one of several—including sister Forrest Sherman—which represented the United States at the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in Montreal in 1959- She later made port visits on all five Great Lakes hosting thousands of U. S. and Canadian visitors.
• In April 1963, the Du Pont was the command ship for search operations for USS Thresher (SSN-593), the nu­clear-powered attack submarine lost in the Atlantic.
• The Du Pont deployed to Vietnam from July 1967 to

support of the Third Marine Division and Twelfth Ma­rine Regiment at the demilitarized zone between South and North Vietnam. The ship received heavy fire from shore four times and on 28 August a direct hit on mount 52 hilled one man and injured eight.

^ In a test personnel program in 1973, the ship operated as a unit of Destroyer Squadron 26, the “Mod Squad,” in which officer billets were staffed by officers one grade lower in rank than traditionally assigned.

Bigelow (DD-942)

^ Participated in recovery operations in 1961 in the Atlan- hc for the first Mercury space missions.

^ In 1971, while operating as the U. S. unit in the multi­national NATO Standing Naval Force Atlantic, the ship was designated to be the first U. S. flagship.

^ Operated as a test platform in 1976 for evaluations of the new Vulcan/Phalanx 20-millimeter rapid-fire close-in Weapon system. The system has subsequently been in­stalled in dozens of U. S. warships.

Blandy (DD-943)

^ In 1958 the ship returned the remains of the Unknown Soldier of World War II from Europe for interment in the Arlington National Cemetery.

^ The Blancly obtained sonar contact on a suspected So­viet submarine in 1961 and held the contact submerged for more than 72 hours, earning the ship a case of whiskey as an unofficial prize from the Commander in Chief Atlantic Fleet.

^ Beginning in late 1979, when the U. S. embassy in Teheran, Iran, was overrun and the Khomeini dictatorship was established, and through January 1980 when the So­viet Union invaded Afghanistan, the United States intensi­fied its naval presence in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, deploying the Blcmdy, along with numerous other ships, for varying periods of time.

Manley (DD-940)

► The ship was assigned to movie-making in 1957 along With sister ship, Forrest Sherman. The film was “Windjammer,” one of the early “Cinerama” movies which used multiple cameras to give the audience the illu­sion of being in the middle of the action. It featured the Norwegian training ship Christian Radich. The destroyers conducted numerous maneuvers including highlining ca­dets from the tall-masted sailing ship.

^ Although the new aluminum superstructure of the class

Movie-making was a mission for the Manley (DD-940) and the Forrest Sherman (DD-931), shown here in 1957 high- lining cadets from the Norwegian training ship, the Chris­tian Radich. The evolutions were filmed for scenes in the “Cinerama” film “Windjammer.”

was light in weight, it was lacking in strength in 1957 when the Manley was struck by a large wave during a storm off the Azores. The radar and communications spaces in the superstructure were stove in by the force of the wave and two men were killed.

• The ship conducted in 1959 the first test evaluations operating a drone antisubmarine helicopter (DASH) from the deck of a destroyer.
• As rebel forces began the successful overthrow of the Arab government of Zanzibar, the Manley evacuated 91 American citizens from the island.

Mullinnix (DD-944)

• While deployed to Vietnam in 1969, the ship provided gunfire support along the entire South China Sea coast of South Vietnam, firing against enemy targets at the DMZ, Danang Harbor, Qui Nhon, Nha Trang, and Cam Ranh Bay, earning the ship the “top gun” award that deploy­ment.
• During operations with the Middle East Force in 1974 in the Gulf of Aden, the Mullinnix took the disabled French frigate Balny in tow for two days until the ship could be turned over to the French.

Hull (DD-945)

• The ship made 11 Western Pacific deployments and conducted 20 Vietnam combat patrols. In 1965 she res­cued a downed pilot from the carrier Coral Sea (CVA-43) while serving as plane guard.
• Saved three survivors in 1973 from the sunken commer­cial tug Marpole.
• The first destroyer to mount an 8-inch gun, the Hull served as the test platform in 1975 for the 8-inch/55 major caliber lightweight gun. The gun could be operated by one man and fire 12 rounds per minute at a range of more than 15 miles. The program was terminated without the gun being approved for production.

Edson (DD-946)

• While providing plane guard duty in 1971 for the carrier Ranger (CVA-61), the Edson rescued three men from a downed A-3 aircraft.
• Provided emergency medical assistance in 1962 to the Danish merchantman Margit, highlining medical person­nel and drugs to the freighter in heavy seas.
• In 1964 during a deployment to Vietnam, the Edson was assigned the task of escorting and guarding a truck convoy. The ship maneuvered along the coastline with guns ready while the Third Marine Division moved men and supplies on the coastal road from Danang to Hue.
• With fall of Saigon imminent in April 1975, the ship was one of more than 45 in the South China Sea that carried out Operation Frequent Wind, the final evacuation from South Vietnam.

Somers (DD-947/DDG-34)

• The ship was assigned to establish a naval presence off

Korea in January 1968 after North Korea on 24 January seized the intelligence collecting ship USS Pueblo (AGER-2).

Morton (DD-948)

• During her deployment to Vietnam in 1969, the Morton provided offensive gunfire in Operation Sea Dragon against military facilities and radar installations in North Vietnam, and against coastal barges ferrying military sup­plies from the north to the south.

Parsons (DD-949/DDG-33)

• Beginning in July 1958 and through June 1963, the United States maintained patrols in the Taiwan Straits to stop the Communist Chinese from shelling the Nationalist Chinese held islands of Quemoy and Matsu and to dis­courage the communists from invading Nationalist China on Taiwan. The Parsons was one of seven ships of her class, which drew patrol duty during the period to help establish peace and to assist in ferrying supplies among the islands.

Richard S. Edwards (DD-950)

• The ship made nine Vietnam deployments, and with sister ships the Edson and Morton began the first offensive patrols in the Tonkin Gulf after the August 1964 Turner Joy/Maddox incident, firing on suspected enemy gunboats and military installations ashore.

Turner Joy (DD-951)

• For her action through several deployments the Turner Joy would receive a total of nine battle stars for Vietnam service, but would be remembered mostly for participation with the Maddox (DD-731) in the fateful Tonkin Gulf night action in early August 1964, which signalled the beginning of the major U. S. involvement in Vietnam. The Maddox was on surveillance and intelligence-gather­ing duty, called DeSoto patrol, in the Tonkin Gulf about 28 miles off the Vietnamese coast when she was attacked on 2 August by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Presi­dent Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the Navy to continue the patrols; the Turner Joy was directed to join and assist the Maddox. Two days later the Turner Joy and Maddox re­portedly again were attacked by gunboats and returned fire. The Turner Joy claimed to have sunk two and dam­aged two other gunboats. Carrier air retaliation was or­dered and aircraft from the Ticonderoga (CVA-14) and Constellation (CVA-64) flew 64 sorties against enemy tor­pedo bases and an oil storage area. The Tonkin Gulf inci­dent was the turning point for U. S. involvement in Viet­nam. It mobilized public opinion, and the Congress approved the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which opened the way for U. S. combat troops to be sent to Vietnam.

► After firing around the clock day and night, expending more than 700 rounds and being credited with destroying 57 enemy structures in the vicinity of Chu Lai in October 1964, the Turner Joy experienced a hang-fire in a 5-inch gun. Three men were killed and three others injured while trying to clear the gun.

End of the Line

The Navy’s announcement of the retirement of the For­rest Sherman class came in 1982. The destroyers had been obsolescent almost from the time of commissioning, be­cause they had the misfortune to join the fleet just about

The Survivors

More than four years after the announced retire­ment of the Forrest Sherman class, two of its mem­bers continue to serve the Navy. The USS Edson (DD-946), the last of the class still in commission, trains both Naval Reservists and students at the Sur­face Warfare Officers School in Newport, Rhode Is­land. The Barry (DD-933) has been struck from the Naval Register, but she nevertheless continues to show the flag in Washington D.C.

One of the few unmodified ships of the class, the Edson serves as a platform for training large num­bers of officer students and reservists in naval gun­fire support. The ship’s motto, “Three Guns, No Waiting,” became particularly well-known in Viet­nam in 1967-68: In 1968 she fired more than 23,500 rounds of 5-inch and was named “top gun destroyer” by gunfire spotters for her precision performance.

The Barry now serves as an attraction for schoolchil­dren and other visitors to the Washington Navy Yard.

the time the guided missile revolution was gaining mo­mentum. The era of the gun destroyer was moving to a close, despite the many worthy accomplishments recorded by the DD-931s during their careers. (Naval experts may contend that the Spruance-class ships are gun destroyers also, but they are fundamentally different surface combat­ants, especially with their helicopter facilities and impend­ing addition of enhanced antiair warfare weaponry.)

A terse statement in November 1982 announced the re­tirement of the DD-931 class, except for the Edson and noted: ‘ ‘The average age of these ships is 24 years and the cost of modernizing them is far greater than the benefits that could be derived from their continued service.”

An important factor in the era of antiship cruise missiles Was the consideration that if 360-degree protection were to be afforded by a close-in weapon system, some offen­sive capability would have to be surrendered, because there was no additional margin for weapons growth. Simi­larly, the Forrest Shermans, were not air-capable destroy­ers. With the exception of the Charles F. Adams (DDG-2) class, all destroyers and most frigates built since the For­rest Shermans have been given a helo-capability/ compatability to counter the submarine threat. Their heli­copters also give the more modem warships an over-the- horizon targeting capability for employment of U. S. cruise missiles.

The DD-931 class put 1,200 psi propulsion plants at sea in significant numbers. These installations were smaller and lighter than earlier steam generating plants but never­theless produced higher temperatures and pressures. Fif­teen years after the Forrest Shermans entered the fleet, the

CNO had become so concerned about the readiness of 1,200-pound plants in general that a special interest im­provement program was initiated. Engineering reliability under this broad-based program increased, largely as a result of increased attention to standards and greater em­phasis on training and performance.

Master Chief Machinist’s Mate Duncan remembers that time well, both from his deckplate perspective on USS Jonas Ingram (DD-938) and his next assignment as force master chief of the Naval Surface Force Atlantic: ‘‘Some people described the 1200-pound plants as ‘less-forgiv­ing,’ but they didn’t ‘forgive’ at all. It was particularly tough on the boiler technicians [BTs], because that rating wasn’t getting the quality control required for awhile, and that coincided with a lack of leadership in the fire- rooms. Looking at the ships as the force master chief, it was plain that the successful 1,200 psi ships had E-8 and E-9 BTs in the firerooms. The Forrest Shermans were no different.”

Engineering problems that resulted in establishment of the 1,200 psi improvement program influenced the Navy in another major way. Momentum increased to get reliable gas turbine propulsion for surface warships of the future. Significantly, the propulsion plants of Spruance and the Oliver Hazard Perry classes require fewer men than on the older surface warships. The drive for a 600-ship Navy required more ships and men to man those ships. Like other destroyers before, the Forrest Shermans gave way to more capable warships. The crew members freed by their decommissioning were required to man their successors in the Navy of today.