Story 0008
October 17, 1938 Cramp and Sons Philadelphia
DD-131 USS Buchanan steamed past the row of merchant ships loading for dispatch to Europe and the Near East, guided by a pair of tugboats. She was going into drydock for the next three months. A comprehensive overhaul of machinery was the main course of business. Her rear armament was being experimentally re-arranged. The 3 inch anti-aircraft gun was gone. The aft 4 inch gun took its place while it was being replaced by a quad 1.1 inch mount. She would not be as good as new when she left the caisson, but she would be in far better shape in three months than she had been in years.
Thirty of her sisters had already been overhauled and updated. Eight had been converted into minelayers, and sixteen had seen their engineering spaces reworked. Those ships had lost a boiler and 10 knots of speed to gain the range to be a convoy escort.
DD-131 USS Buchanan steamed past the row of merchant ships loading for dispatch to Europe and the Near East, guided by a pair of tugboats. She was going into drydock for the next three months. A comprehensive overhaul of machinery was the main course of business. Her rear armament was being experimentally re-arranged. The 3 inch anti-aircraft gun was gone. The aft 4 inch gun took its place while it was being replaced by a quad 1.1 inch mount. She would not be as good as new when she left the caisson, but she would be in far better shape in three months than she had been in years.
Thirty of her sisters had already been overhauled and updated. Eight had been converted into minelayers, and sixteen had seen their engineering spaces reworked. Those ships had lost a boiler and 10 knots of speed to gain the range to be a convoy escort.
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