Escort destroyer
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Destroyer escort were surface vessels of war, during the Second World War were designed for sea areas where Allied convoys except with the submarine -Danger also had to reckon with attacks of enemy aircraft and lighter surface units. Escort destroyers are larger, faster and more heavily armed than corvettes or frigates . Furthermore, the anti-submarine defense is more developed in this type of ship.
Escort destroyers originated in the UK . Here the Hunt class became very successful. In the USA , the destroyer escorts (DE = Destroyer Escort ) were very numerically represented. In the United Kingdom, the destroyers escorted after the war were given new identifications with the letter F. However, this did not mean that they would have been reclassified as frigates, as the Royal Navy identification system at that time was not based on the type of ship, but on the ship's home base .
In the US, there was next to the "normal" escort destroyers (DE) those that because of the great need for escort vehicles through retrofitting (strengthening of Seezielgeschütze and replacement by depth charge mortars and anti-aircraft guns ) from older destroyers were obtained. These carried the identification DDE (DD was the identification for destroyers with the addition E for the conversion).
After the war, the stocks of destroyer escorts in both navies were rapidly reduced. Ships, whose machines were worn out by the war effort, were scrapped and the rest was gradually handed over to allies and other friendly states to arm their navies for the beginning Cold War . The remaining ships were designated by the Navy as ocean escorts, with the change in the designation scheme of the US Navy in 1975, the DE hull designation was abolished and the remaining destroyers escorted to frigates .
