Above: Bath Iron Works hull numbers 190 and 191, the future Nicholas and O’Bannon, in a progress photo taken New Year’s Day, 1942. Click on any image to view it in more detail.

O’Bannon and Nicholas on the ways at Bath.

The first shipyards to change over construction from the 1620- and 1630-ton classes to the new 2100-ton (DD 445) class were Bath Iron Works (BIW) at Bath, Maine and Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Corp. at Kearny, New Jersey. Hull numbers were allocated to yards in groups and both yards customarily laid down keels in pairs on adjoining slipways. Thus the first two 2100-tonners, later christened as Fletcher and Radford, were laid down at Kearny on 2 October 1941, followed there by Jenkins and La Vallette, on 27 November.
     Previously, however, keels for six Fletchers had been laid down at Bath—Nicholas and O’Bannon, Bath hull numbers 190 and 191 on 3 March 1941, followed by Chevalier and Strong on 20 April and Taylor and De Haven by the end of September.
     Nicholas was thus the first ship laid down, launched, and commissioned in the largest single class of destroyer ever built by any navy. She was also the first US destroyer to be designed for and fitted with radar as built: her SG radar carried serial number 3.