page_title: Mahan-class destroyer
section_title: Preston
hierarchical_section_title: Mahan-class destroyer / Service history / Preston
context_page_description: The Mahan-class destroyers of the United States Navy were a series of 18 destroyers of which the first 16 were laid down in 1934. The last two of the 18, Dunlap and Fanning, are sometimes considered a separate ship class. All 18 were commissioned in 1936 and 1937. Mahan was the lead ship, named for Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, an influential historian and theorist on sea power.
  The Mahans featured improvements over previous destroyers, with 12 torpedo tubes, superimposed gun shelters, and generators for emergency use. The Standard displacement increased from 1,365 tons to 1,500 tons. The class introduced a new steam propulsion system that combined increases in pressure and temperature with a new type of lightweight steam turbine, which proved simpler and more efficient than the Mahans' predecessors—so much so that it was used on many subsequent wartime US destroyers.
  All 18 ships saw action in World War II, entirely in the Pacific Theater, which included the Guadalcanal Campaign, and the battles of the Santa Cruz Islands, Leyte Gulf, and Iwo Jima.
context_section_description: USS Preston was in service from October 1936 until November 1942. Following shakedown, she served briefly under the Chief of Naval Operations, then joined the US Fleet. Preston did peacetime training exercises into the month of December 1941, and performed patrol and escort duties along the west coast until June 1942. After that, she screened the carrier Saratoga to Hawaii, followed by four months of patrol and escort work in Hawaiian waters.
  In October she became part of Task Force 61 and participated in the Battle of Santa Cruz.  In mid-November 1942, Preston sailed to the western end of Guadalcanal to intercept another run by the Japanese to bombard Henderson Field. In the ensuing skirmish, Preston was hit by a salvo from a Japanese cruiser that put both fire rooms out of commission and toppled the aft stack. Her fires made an easy target; as they spread, the order was given to abandon ship. The ship rolled onto her side and sank, taking 116 of her crew with her. Preston received two battle stars for her World War II service.
caption: Preston underway in the 1930s
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