Bagley-class destroyer

The Bagley class of eight destroyers was built for the United States Navy. They were part of a series of USN destroyers limited to 1,500 tons standard displacement by the London Naval Treaty and built in the 1930s. All eight ships were ordered and laid down in 1935 and subsequently completed in 1937. Their layout was based on the concurrently-built Gridley class destroyer design and was similar to the Benham class as well; all three classes were notable for including sixteen 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes, the heaviest torpedo armament ever on US destroyers. They retained the fuel-efficient power plants of the Mahan-class destroyers, and thus had a slightly lower speed than the Gridleys. However, they had the extended range of the Mahans, 1,400 nautical miles (2,600 km) farther than the Gridleys. The Bagley class destroyers were readily distinguished visually by the prominent external trunking of the boiler uptakes around their single stack. All eight Bagley-class destroyers were present at the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. They all served in the Pacific during World War II, with Jarvis, Blue, and Henley lost in combat. In 1944 Mugford suffered extensive damage from a kamikaze hit that put her out of combat for six months. Ralph Talbot later received a kamikaze hit off Okinawa. After the war, Bagley, Helm, and Patterson were decommissioned in 1945 and scrapped in 1947. Mugford and Ralph Talbot, still in commission, were targets during the Operation Crossroads atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946. Contaminated by radiation, they were scuttled off Kwajalein in 1948.