The USS Slater, Last American Destroyer Escort
Near Albany, New York
Moored at the Port of Albany, at the foot of Broadway where the Hudson curves past the city, sits a warship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean five times under enemy threat and then spent four more decades in the Aegean Sea. The USS Slater was a Cannon-class destroyer escort, commissioned on May First, nineteen forty-four, at a shipyard in Tampa. Destroyer escorts were the workhorses of convoy duty, fast enough to hunt submarines, small enough to be built quickly, numerous enough to keep the supply lines to Britain alive through the darkest years of the Battle of the Atlantic.
The Slater escorted five convoys across the Atlantic between October of nineteen forty-four and May of nineteen forty-five, then the war in Europe ended and the ship shifted to the Pacific. After decommissioning in nineteen forty-seven, the United States transferred the vessel to Greece, where the Hellenic Navy renamed her Aetos, Eagle. She served Greek patrol and training duties until nineteen ninety-one.
A Russian tugboat brought her back across the Atlantic in nineteen ninety-three. She arrived at the Port of Albany on October twenty-sixth, nineteen ninety-seven, and has been moored here since. Of all the destroyer escorts built during the Second World War, fewer than a dozen survive globally.
The Slater is the only one still afloat in the United States and the only one preserved in its original wartime configuration. In two thousand twelve, the National Park Service designated her a National Historic Landmark. Visitors walk her decks, stand in the engine room, and rest a hand on the depth charge racks.
The Atlantic is still out there.
