Following the end of World War One the US Navy put a halt or slowdown on ship building. With many of the four-stack "Flush deck" destroyers in mothballs and the size of the Navy limited by the Washington Treaty, there was little perceived need for new destroyers and no funding. The Navy tried several times to build new destroyers to catch up to the technological advances of other navies but the funds were always denied. It was not until ten years later that a new design would be built, and even they were limited in effectiveness by post-war treaties.

The Farragut class was first authorized in 1918 but design was not started until 1931 and by then the designers had started from scratch multiple times. This class featured many improvements over the older flush deckers, including better range, speed, manueverability, armament, and living arangements for the crew, which made them so much more effective than the earlier classes that they were known as the "Goldplaters". Despite all the new technology and limitations imposed by the Washington Treaty the new ships were a success. Shortly afterwards the further improved "Mahan" Class was authorized and design work started.

Tenth of the Mahan class, USS Shaw was laid down in the Philidelphia Navy Yard on October 1, 1934. She and her sister ship Cassin were launched on the same day a year later on October 28, 1935, the day after Navy Day. USS Shaw was Commishioned on September 18, 1936, and featured improvements that made her more effective than past ships. These improvements largely centered around armament and propulsion, with added torpedo tubes and improved boilers that drove new, lightweight and more reliable turbines. The earlier Farragut class had two four-tube torpedo launchers and five 5"/38 guns; Shaw changed the #3 gun out for an extra quad-launch torpedo station, giving her an eight-tube broadside in battle. Shaw could steam farther and fight harder than the ships the Navy had to make due with in the 20's and early 30's.

As launched, Shaw was 341’ 4" long with a beam of 35’ 5". Full load displacement was 2,345 tons and gave her a draft of 13’ 2". Two GE steam turbines with a total of 49,000 horsepower powered by four boilers propelled Shaw to a top speed during trials of 39.2 knots. Her crew at full strength was 16 officers and 235 enlisted sailors.

Taking command of the Shaw during her commishioning was Lt. Comdr. E.A. Mitchell. Following her commishioning Shaw remained at the Philidelphia Navy Yard for some more work and crew training. Even though the Navy had received funding for the new ships, work on them was slow. Her first sojourn from the Navy yard not until April of the next year, when Shaw crossed the Atlantic Ocean on her initial shakedown and cruise, which saw stops in Southampton and Harwich, England; Dieppe, France; and Naples, Italy on the Mediterranean Sea . She returned in June for more work, spending a year under overhaul in the Philidelphia Navy Yard correcting deficiencies which had been noted.

Following the overhaul, Shaw commenced her acceptance trials, which were completed in June of 1938. Following this Shaw began training excercises, including patrols into the Atlantic as well as south, make a stop in Rio de Janeiro in September of 1938. At the end of the year Shaw and her crew were transferred to the Pacific fleet and transitted the Panama Canal. Arriving at Mare Island Navy Yard, Shaw underwent further work from January 8 to April 4, 1939. The remainder of the year and the first part of 1940 was spent patrolling the west coast.

Tensions with Japan were increasing and in April of 1940 Shaw and crew were deployed to the Territory of Hawaii to take part in Fleet Problem XXI, a Navy test of tactics and training. Fleet Problem XXI was the last large-scale training excercise the Navy was able to execute before World War II started and was cruicial in testing new tactics and identifying how carriers would integrate into the surface fleet, and how destroyers such as Shaw would operate with them.

Rather than returning to the west coast as they expected, the crew of Shaw were told, along with many other ships, that they were remaining in Hawaii to act as a deterrant to the Japanese. Shaw was to be permanently based in Pearl Harbor. Obviously, this upset many of the fleet sailors who had families back in the US, but arrangements were made by some to bring their family members out to Oahu to live. For those that could not, Shaw's return to the west coast in November for overhaul was a welcome break.

Shaw remained in overhaul until February of 1941, at which time she returned to Pearl Harbor for further excercises and training. Although the Hawaiian islands are beautiful, life there was maddening for many sailors. Honolulu was accessable only through a much sought after liberty pass, and the streets were full of Shore Patrol sailors attempting to maintain order and civility amoung sailors far from home with little time to blow off steam. In an effort to make life a little more palatable for his sailors, the Captain of Shaw made an arrangement with the Captain of the USS Case to split the cost of a flatbed truck to use to shuttle sailors to a beach house in Kailua, on the far, windward side of the island.

Twenty sailors a day from the two ships would make the trip over the Pali highway starting at 0800 for a day of beach time in a quiet place away from the hustle, bustle, and MP's. Senior Petty Officers had the good luck of being assigned there for a week at a time as a care taker. These idellic periods of rest came to a tragic end in July of 1941 however, when the flatbed truck lost a front wheel during a return trip and rolled over, coming to a stop upside down. A sailor from the Shaw named Scholl was killed and sixteen others wounded.

At the end of November a fatefull event happened that could have had a tragic ending, but instead put Shaw in the wrong place at the right time. Shaw was patrolling for submarines outside of Pearl Harbor in a darkened ship condition with orders to shoot any contacts when the sonar operator on duty picked up the sound of ship propellors approaching. He reported to the OOD (Officer of the Deck) screw noises, but the inexperienced OOD chose to discount them, and Shaw kept steaming on a collision course with USS Sabine, a fleet oiler which supplied fuel to ships operating in the waters between California and Hawaii. Shaw crossed the path of Sabine and her narrow hull would have been catastrophically opened to the sea, if not cleaved in two, had Sabine not seen her just before collision and changed course.

As it was, the two ships collided and Shaw's hull gashed. Had she not been close to Pearl Harbor she could have been in trouble. Shaw made it back to the harbor and due to her damage was placed in YFD-2, a floating drydock for repairs, bumping USS Case out of the line for routine maintenance. Because of the collision and damage, Shaw was in drydock on December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese Navy attacked and brought the United States into WWII.

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