AMERICAN DESTROYER ESCORT (DE) PRODUCTION1
JANUARY I-JULY I, 1943
Designed specifically for open-ocean convoy escort, the urgently needed American destroyer escort (or DE) building program was postponed or delayed time and time again in 1942 by President Roosevelt, who assigned higher priorities to the merchant-ship and landing-craft building programs. As a result, the first two American-built DEs were not commissioned until January 20, 1943. As shown below, in the first half of 1943, January to June inclusive, fifty-five DEs were commissioned in U.S. shipyards in six different states. Of the first fifty-five ships, twenty-one were sent directly to the Pacific, five were assigned to ASW schools, and seven were transferred to the Royal Navy, leaving only twenty-two of the American DEs in the Atlantic, of which six were converted to fast transports (APDEs). By war’s end, American yards had completed 565 DEs in six classes, of which seventy-eight were transferred to the Royal Navy and twelve to other navies. The preferred version was a 306-foot vessel of 1,400 tons with a top speed of twenty-one knots and sufficient fuel capacity to cross the Atlantic nonstop.2
