abstract
| - USS Beatty (DD-640), a Gleaves-class destroyer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for Rear Admiral Frank E. Beatty. Beatty was laid down as Mullany on 1 May 1941 at the Charleston Navy Yard. The name "Beatty" was originally assigned to a destroyer scheduled to be built in San Francisco, but the names of DD-528 and DD-640 were switched on 28 May 1941 to accommodate Mrs. Charles H. Drayton, the daughter of the late Rear Admiral, who had asked that the ship honoring her father be built at the Charleston Navy Yard. Sponsored by Mrs. Drayton, Beatty was launched on 20 December 1941, and commissioned on 7 May 1942, Lieutenant Commander Frederick C. Stelter, Jr., in command.
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