Porter-class Destroyer

Ships in class:

The Porter-class destroyers were a class of eight 1,850-ton large destroyers in the United States Navy. Like the preceding Farragut Class, their construction was authorized by Congress on 26 April 1916, but funding was delayed considerably. They were designed based on an 1,850-ton standard displacement limit imposed by the London Naval Treaty; the treaty's tonnage limit allowed 13 ships of this size, and the similar Somers class was built later to meet the limit. They were built in response to the large destroyers that the Imperial Japanese Navy was building at the time, and were initially leaders of destroyer flotillas. They served extensively in World War II, in the Pacific War, the Atlantic, and in the Americas. Porter was the class's only loss, in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942.