USS Beatty (DD-640)

History

United States
Name:	Beatty
Builder:	Charleston Navy Yard
Laid down:	1 May 1941
Launched:	20 December 1941
Commissioned:	7 May 1942
Fate:	Sunk by German aircraft, off Algeria, 6 November 1943
General characteristics
Class and type:	Gleaves-class destroyer
Displacement:	2,060 tons
Length:	348 ft 3 in (106.15 m)
Beam:	36 ft 1 in (11.00 m)
Draft:	11 ft 10 in (3.61 m)
Propulsion:	50,000 shp (37,000 kW) 4 boilers 2 propellers
Speed:	37.4 knots (69 km/h)
Range:	6,500 nmi (12,000 km; 7,500 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement:	16 officers, 260 enlisted
Armament:	4 × 5 in (127 mm)/ 38 caliber DP guns, 4 × Bofors 40 mm guns 5 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons 5 × 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes (5 Mark 15 torpedoes), 6 × depth charge projectors, 2 × depth charge tracks

USS Beatty (DD-640), a Gleaves-class destroyer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for Rear Admiral Frank E. Beatty.

Beatty was laid down as Mullany on 1 May 1941 at the Charleston Navy Yard.

The name "Beatty" was originally assigned to a destroyer scheduled to be built in San Francisco, but the names of Mullany (DD-528) and DD-640 were switched on 28 May 1941 to accommodate Mrs. Charles H. Drayton, the daughter of the late Rear Admiral, who had asked that the ship honoring her father be built at the Charleston Navy Yard. Sponsored by Mrs. Drayton, Beatty was launched on 20 December 1941, and commissioned on 7 May 1942, Lieutenant Commander Frederick C. Stelter, Jr., in command.

Following shakedown, Beatty escorted the Norwegian tanker Britainsea and Barstowe from the Isles of Shoals to Portland, Maine, on 8 August before she was detached for patrol duty and antisubmarine warfare (ASW) training. She next steamed to Boston to embark Admiral Royal E. Ingersoll, Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, on 12 August. In company with Quick, the destroyer transported her high-ranking passenger to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Argentia, Newfoundland, before disembarking him at Portland on 22 August. The destroyer then escorted Vixen, with Admiral Ingersoll aboard, from Portland to New London, Connecticut where she arrived on 23 August.

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