The U. S. Navy and U. S. Coast Guard have jointly sponsored the development of an airborne noise prediction procedure for military surface ships, which was published in a report entitled “Handbook for Shipboard Airborne Noise Control” dated 13 February 1974. This paper is based on a study aimed at verifying the “Handbook” prediction procedure by comparison with full‐scale, shipboard measurements. The U. S. Navy Spruance Class Destroyer (DD 963) offered an excellent opportunity for making such comparison. During the design phase, predictive calculations of sound pressure levels were made for all manned spaces. During the trials period airborne noise measurements were made in these spaces. The paper compares predicted versus measured sound levels in a limited number of spaces and also examines the source sound power level prediction formulae against measured power levels for various types of machinery. On the basis of this one ship sampling, reasonably good correlation was demonstrated between the predicted and measured sound pressure levels.