Size: 8 x 8 inches

This WWII ‘RESTRICTED’ identification ship poster is series ‘I & C Bulletin NACI-ONI No.56’ and is dated as being issued on Math 14th, 1944. Titled ‘U.S. Destroyer (Porter Class)’ and marked RESTRICTED, this poster served as an identification tool issued by the Division of Naval Intelligence and would have been used in either the Navy Task Force Binder or in the Pilot’s Chart Board. These pages were individual page bring backs of a WWII veteran and were not in a binder, making it a good guess these were used on the pilot chart boards.

The Naval Intelligence Division (NID) was created as a component part of the Admiralty War Staff in 1912. It was the intelligence arm of the British Admiralty before the establishment of a unified Defense Intelligence Staff in 1964. It dealt with matters concerning British naval plans, with the collection of naval intelligence. It was also known as "Room 39", after its room number at the Admiralty.

Service History:

McDougal, Winslow, and Moffett were among the ships that supported the Roosevelt-Churchill conference at Placentia Bay near Argentia, Newfoundland that resulted in the Atlantic Charter in August 1941. Selfridge and Phelps were in port during the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 and engaged enemy aircraft. The class served in the Battle of the Atlantic, in the Pacific War, and escorted convoys in the Americas. Phelps was at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway, scuttling the disabled aircraft carrier Lexington with torpedoes at the former battle. Balch rescued survivors of the aircraft carrier Yorktown at Midway. While operating out of Trinidad in the Caribbean, Moffett assisted in sinking two U-boats, U-128 and U-604. Notable engagements for other ships of the class included the invasion of Guadalcanal and the Marianas campaign. By September 1944 the class was concentrated in the Atlantic. Porter was the class's only loss, in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands on 26 October 1942. Selfridge lost her bow to a torpedo in the Naval Battle of Vella Lavella on 6 October 1943, but was repaired. McDougal and Winslow were reclassified as AG-126 and AG-127 in September 1945 and modified for anti-kamikaze research in a similar configuration to Gearing-class radar picket destroyers. All except Winslow were scrapped shortly after the war; Winslow remained in service as a training ship until 1950 and was scrapped in 1959.