The first ship to bear the name FARRAGUT was the TB-11, a U.S. Navy Torpedo Boat. Commissioned in 1899, the boat was named in honor of Admiral David Farragut, an American Union Navy Admiral who was once quoted as saying "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!". The USS FARRAGUT TB-11 patrolled the Panama Canal during World War I and had an otherwise uneventful tour of duty until it was decommissioned in 1919.

 

The second USS FARRAGUT, a 1190-ton Clemson class destroyer built at San Francisco, California, was commissioned in June 1920. A month later, when the Navy formally implemented hull numbers for its ships, she received the designation DD-300. For nearly two years, Farragut was held in reserve at San Diego, California, but she began regular operations with the U.S. Fleet in March 1922. On 8 September 1923, while serving with Destroyer Squadron ELEVEN, she narrowly escaped destruction when seven of the squadron's destroyers were wrecked at Honda Point, CA.

During 1924 and 1927, the USS FARRAGUT visited the Caribbean to take part in fleet maneuvers. She steamed across the Pacific in mid-1925, during the Battle Fleet's visit to New Zealand and Australia, and again visited the central Pacific area in 1928, during exercises in and around the Hawaiian Islands. As part of a general realignment of the Navy's destroyer force, USS Farragut was decommissioned in April 1930 and scrapped later in that year.

 

The third USS FARRAGUT, first of a class of eight 1365-ton destroyers, was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. With Commander E. Buckmaster in command, she was commissioned in June 1934 as the first U.S. Navy destroyer built in more than a decade, and operated in the Atlantic area until the spring of 1935. Transferred at that time to the Pacific, Farragut took part in the U.S. Fleet's peacetime maneuvers and training. Her base was shifted from the west coast to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in October 1939, and she was moored there when Japan began the Pacific War with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Her early wartime missions included patrol and escort duties in the vicinity of Hawaii and the California coast. In early May 1942, the destroyer participated in the Battle of the Coral Sea.
FARRAGUT remained in the south Pacific area through the end of 1942. In August she screened aircraft carriers in the invasion of Guadalcanal and Tulagi and in the Battle of the Eastern Solomons. During the rest of the Guadalcanal campaign she was mainly employed on patrol and escort missions. Following overhaul in early 1943, she was sent to Alaskan waters, where she took part in the Attu and Kiska operations in May and August. In November 1943 and January-February 1944, Farragut was part of the armada that seized bases in the Gilbert and Marshall islands. She then moved south to support landings along the north shore of New Guinea before returning to the central Pacific to participate in the invasions of Saipan and Guam and in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, during June and July 1944.
Later in the year, FARRAGUT was assigned to screen a force of oilers that sustained the fleet during its assaults on Japanese positions in the western Pacific. Though escort missions occupied most of her remaining World War II service, she was also employed on radar picket duty during the Okinawa campaign in April and May 1945. All told, the FARRAGUT earned 14 battle stars for actions in WWII (including Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Eastern Solomons, Iwo Jima and Okinawa). Soon after the fighting ended, Farragut was sent back to the United States. She arrived at the New York Navy Yard in late September 1945 and was decommissioned a month later. USS FARRAGUT was sold for scrapping in August 1947.

 

USS FARRAGUT, the fourth ship in the Navy to bear the name, was projected as DL 6, reclassified DLG 6 on November 14, 1956, and finally became DDG 37 on June 30, 1975. The Farragut took part in various contingency operations in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, earning the Navy Unit Commendation. The FARRAGUT was decommissioned on October 31, 1989, after almost 29 years of service and was stricken from the Navy list on November 20, 1992.