Photos and the story

McGowan

Class	Fletcher class
Type	Destroyer (DD)
Hull	DD-678
Launched	1943-11-14
Commissioned	1943-12-20
Fate	Afloat. Survived the war. Transferred to Spain, 1 December 1960
Armament (class)	Five single 5-inch guns, two funnels, and two sets of torpedo tubes.
Command	Weiler, James B. Captain from 20 December 1943

Laid down, displacement, length, beam, draft, speed, and complement are not stored for each hull, so this table leaves them out.

The armament line is the class drawing, not a measurement of this hull.

USS McGowan (DD-678) was a Fletcher-class destroyer of the United States Navy. She was launched on 14 November 1943.

She was commissioned on 20 December 1943, a little more than a month after the launch. James B. Weiler was her captain from that day.

On 25 October 1944, McGowan fought in the Battle of Surigao Strait. Her place in the battle was in the destroyer torpedo attack.

The destroyers in that attack carried torpedoes into the strait. McGowan was one of them, and the torpedo attack is the part she had in the fighting on 25 October 1944.

McGowan survived the war. On 1 December 1960 she was transferred to Spain, and the hull that had been launched in November 1943 passed out of United States hands on that date.

The pictures on this page are the originals.