Inside the wet slip at the Victory Destroyer Plant, Squantum, Massachusetts, November 1919.
The Naval Act of 1916 authorized construction of a Navy “second to none” including 10 battleships, 5 battlecruisers and 50 destroyers. In response, Bethlehem Steel expanded its Fore River Yard at Quincy Massachusetts and constructed an additional “Victory Destroyer Plant” on a peninsula extending into Boston Harbor at nearby Squantum.

Together, the two yards employed 15,000 people and delivered 71 destroyers, more than any other destroyer builder. Squantum, alone, built 35 of these beginning with Delphy (Destroyer No. 261), sometimes known as the “Delphy class.”

With no other purpose, the Squantum Yard was short lived. Following the delivery of its last destroyer, Osborne (Destroyer No. 295), it closed on 1 June 1920 and the site was reabsorbed into the Squantum Naval Air Station, the former Harvard Aviation Field, which had been established in 1910. This operated until 1953 when its location, a mere four miles off the end of 10,000-foot runway 22L at Boston’s Logan International Airport, forced its abandonment.

The Squantum peninsula was subsequently redeveloped for commercial and residential use.