USS Slater (DE-766)

USS Slater (DE-766) lies moored on the Hudson River in Albany as a rare survivor of a vast but largely vanished warship class. This Cannon-class destroyer escort, commissioned in 1944 and built at Tampa Shipbuilding Company, represents the compact end of mid-20th-century naval engineering: optimized for convoy duty, anti-submarine work, and long days on the North Atlantic. During the Second World War she escorted multiple convoys to the United Kingdom and briefly operated in the Pacific, giving the ship a service pattern typical of her type without the embellishment of major battle fame. Postwar, she served four more decades in the Hellenic Navy as Aetos, part of the “Wild Beasts” flotilla, before returning to the United States as a museum ship. Enthusiasts encounter the only destroyer escort afloat in the U.S. preserved in wartime configuration, designated a National Historic Landmark in 2012. The steel, fittings, and compartment layout reveal how small-ship crews lived and fought in the Battle of the Atlantic era, while the very survival of the vessel underscores the preservation challenges of keeping a working-class warship intact on a northern riverfront.