Captain Class Frigate - Early History

Early History

In June 1941 His Majesty's Government, seeking to take advantage of the US Lend-Lease program, asked the United States to design, build and supply an escort vessel that was suitable for anti-submarine warfare in deep open ocean situations. The requested particulars were a length of 300 feet (90 m), a speed of 20 knots (37 km/h), a dual purpose main armament and an open bridge. The United States Navy had been looking into the feasibility of such a vessel since 1939, and Captain E. L. Cochrane of the American Bureau of Shipping – who, during his visit to the United Kingdom in 1940, had looked at Royal Navy corvettes and Hunt-class destroyers – had come up with a design for such a vessel. This design anticipated a need for large numbers of this type of vessels, and had sought to remove the major production bottleneck for such vessels: reduction gearing required for the steam turbine machinery of destroyers. The production of reduction gears could not be easily increased, as the precision machinery required for their construction alone took over a year to produce. Therefore, a readily-available and proven layout of diesel-electric machinery, also used on submarines, was adopted. When the United Kingdom made its request, Admiral Stark of the US Navy decided to put these plans into motion and recommended that the British order be approved. Gibbs and Cox, the marine architects charged with creating working plans, had to make several alterations to the production methods and to Captain Cochrane's original design, most notably dropping another production bottleneck – the five inch/38 caliber gun – and replacing it with the three inch/50 caliber gun, which allowed adding a superfiring third gun (at the "B" position, forward), the original design specified eight engines for 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) but other priority programs forced the use of only four with a consequent shortening of the hull and reducing the ships maximum speed by an estimated 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph). The design had relatively light armour with for example the steel plate used on the Buckleys ranging from 1/2 inch to 7/16 inch with 1/4 inch plate being used for the majority of the hull and deck plating.

The result was a vessel that could be produced quickly (for example Halsted was built in just 24 and half days) at half the cost of a fleet destroyer, ($3.5 million compared to $10.4 million for a 1620 ton destroyer such as the Benson class or $6.4 million for a Hunt class destroyer)

On 15 August 1941 President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorised the construction of 50 of the new Evarts-class design as BDE 1–50 (British destroyer escort) as part of the 1799 program (a plan to supply 1799 ships to the Royal Navy). The turbo-electric powered Buckley class were not part of the first order and were authorised later by Public Law 440 effective 6 February 1942. The Royal Navy placed orders in November 1941 with four shipyards: the Boston Navy Yard, the Mare Island Navy Yard, the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and the Puget Sound Navy Yard. When the United States entered the war, they too adopted the BDE design. The BDE designation was retained by the first six destroyer escorts (BDEs 1, 2, 3, 4, 12 and 46) transferred to the United Kingdom. Of the initial 50 ordered, these were the only ones the Royal Navy received; the rest were reclassified as destroyer escorts (DE) on 25 January 1943 and taken over by the United States Navy. By the end of World War II the Royal Navy had received 32 Evarts and 46 Buckleys from the Boston Navy Yard, Mare Island Navy Yard and Bethlehem-Hingham.

The Royal Navy classified these ships as frigates, as they lacked the torpedo tubes needed for a destroyer classification. For those used to Admiralty-designed ships the Captains were unfamiliar: they had no break forward of the forecastle but instead had a graceful shear to deck-line from the forecastle to midship, and the Evarts had rakish cowls on top of the funnels. Those that served on these ships came to view these features as being very handsome. Amongst the differences with British-designed vessels were using bunks instead of hammocks and welds instead of rivets.