The Benson class was a class of destroyers of the U.S. Navy built 1939–1943. The thirty 1,620-ton Benson-class destroyers were built in two groups. The first six were authorized in fiscal year 1938 (FY38) and laid down at Bethlehem Steel, Quincy, Massachusetts, and three naval shipyards. The remaining 24 "repeat Bensons" were authorized in 1940–42 and built at four Bethlehem Steel yards. They were laid down after the first group was commissioned. These plus the "repeat Livermores" were also known at the time as the Bristol class. During World War II the Bensons were usually combined with the Livermores as the Benson-Livermore class; this persisted in references until at least the 1960s. In some references both classes are combined and called the Benson class. The Benson- and Gleaves-class destroyers were the backbone of the pre-war Neutrality Patrols and brought the action to the enemy by participating in every major campaign of the war.

In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were originally conceived in 1885 by Fernando Villaamil for the Spanish Navy as a defense against torpedo boats, and by the time of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, these "torpedo boat destroyers" (TBDs) were "large, swift, and powerfully armed torpedo boats designed to destroy other torpedo boats". Although the term "destroyer" had been used interchangeably with "TBD" and "torpedo boat destroyer" by navies since 1892, the term "torpedo boat destroyer" had been generally shortened to simply "destroyer" by nearly all navies by the First World War.