Volume 55, Number 4 (2002) Autumn

The year 2002 marks the first century of destroyers in the U.S. Navy, beginning with the commissioning of “Destroyer No. 1,” USS Bainbridge. This milestone is being marked in Newport by “Destroyers: 100 Years,” a series of commemorative events initiated by the Surface Warfare Officers School Command and the Surface Navy Association. The Naval War College is participating in a number of ways, including an exhibition in the museum and this issue’s cover—a portrait of the destroyer USS Mahan (DD 364), see in U.S. Destroyers: Mahan Class, painted by the American maritime artist Jack Coggins in 1991. (The destroyer astern, on the reverse [of the print edition], was not identified by the artist.)

The pictured Mahan, second of that name and the first of its class, was commissioned in 1936 and participated in the Pacific War from 1941 until its sinking on 7 December 1944 after an attack by kamikaze aircraft off Leyte. The painting was given by the USS Mahan Association to the Naval War College Foundation, which made it available to the Museum to exhibit.