My grandfather served on the USS Stevenson (DD-645) in WW2 and I would like to see a destroyer that is as close as possible to a Gleaves-class. As far as I know none survived post-war.
Posted Sep 27, 2016, 6:37 PM UTC
Your best bet is probably one of the Fletcher-class ships. They were built very soon after the Gleaves-class, share similar weapons (5 inch dual purpose guns and 21-inch quintuple torpedo tubes). The Fletcher-class would however be bigger (28 feet longer and 400+ tons heavier).
There appear to be four available at museum ships (three in the US, one in Greece). If you can, I'd probably suggest the USS Cassin Young in Boston, since you could then also see the USS Constitution. The USS Cassin Young also has the most 'superficially' matching weapons to the USS Stevenson, having the same number of torpedo tubes and "only" one more 5 inch gun.
There is also USS The Sullivans (DD-537) in Buffalo NY and USS Kidd (DD-661) in Baton Rogue. Note that The Sullivans' torpedo tubes (as preserved) with 1960's era triple tubes, if that's a consideration for you.
Edit: Sorry, Reddit keeps eating the ) from the end of URL as part of the Reddit formating markup. I've had to truncate the hull number from the URL, so for the later two links, you'll have to select the Fletcher class destroyer from the disambiguation page.
You can use the \ key in front of the ) to let Reddit know to include the ) in the URL.
[E.g.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cassin_Young_(DD-793\))
Thanks for the replies guys. I think I might have seen the Cassin Young when I was a kid. I guess I'd like to see the Kidd some day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher-class_destroyer
USS Kidd, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- was never modernized and retains her WWII configuration.
Looks like the Benson and Sims classes don't have any surviving examples either, they are likely closer in configuration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cassin_Young_(DD-793) is another possibility, also Fletcher class, in Boston, MA.
As is USS The Sullivans, in Buffalo, NY.