Patrol Frigates in North Pacific/BeringSea

Of the twelve frigates built by Kaiser Cargo Company at Richmond on San Francisco Bay, none served in tropical waters, thus from the cool West Coast to the cold of the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. the Kaiser frigates escaped the below decks stifling conditions that plagued frigates serving in the Southwest Pacific. ALBUQUERQUE, assigned as lead ship of Escort Division 27, was first to the Bering Sea, followed by EVERETT, HOQUIAM, PASCO, SASAULITO and TACOMA. PUEBLO, CASPER, GRAND ISLAND and GRAND FORKS worked weather patrol and plane guard out of San Francisco on a schedule of three weeks at sea and two weeks in port.BROWNSVILLE worked out of San Diego, assigned to West Coast Sound School, underway every Monday morning with whatever array of ships had assembled for shakedown exercises. Later, working out of San Francisco, BROWNSVILLE laid a string of flairs in the dead of night to guide a B29 from Hawaii for ditching having radioed engine failure. The B29 lost its last engine several miles short of the flairs and plunged into the sea. The frigate raced to the ditching, successfully recovering fifteen survivors and three bodies for delivery to SanFrancisco. On patrol in October 1944, GRAND FORKS answered a distress call late in the night from a PB2Y about to make an emergency landing in a sea where swells were running up to six feet. Racing to the location and firing off flares and star shells, GRAND FORKS guided the aircraft to a safe landing, quickly taking on board fifteen crewmen and passengers as well as 114 sacks of mail. POCATELLO was the only West Coast frigate to spend her entire career on weather duty. She worked out of Seattle, alternating with the old 240 ft cutter HAIDA on Station Able, 49 degrees N. Latitude - 149 degrees W Longitude or about 1500 miles west of Seattle and 500 miles south of Kodiak in the Gulf of Alaska.

War in the North Pacific and Bering Sea had little influence on the outcome of WWII, and even though early in the war the Japanese saw the Aleutians "pointing like a dagger at the heart of Japan," naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison had it right when he wrote; ". . .No operations in this region of almost perpetual mist snd snow accomplished anything of importance . . . It was a theater of frustrations. Both sides would have done well to leave the Aleutians to the few Aleuts unfortunate to live there. . ." However as part of the Midway offensive in 1942, the Japanese occupied Attu and Kiska at the western end of the chain, and as such, the Americans were obliged to retake these United States owned islands. In March 1943 Admiral Hosogaya with a fleet of heavy cruisers and destroyers and supply vessels bound for Attu and Kiska broke off engagement turning his entire force west on a heading for Japan after spirited exchange with a smaller fleet under Admiral "Soc" McMorris in the Battle of the Komandorskis. American forces landed on Attu on 11 May 1943, securing the island by the end of the month. Kiska was invaded by 35,000 American and Canadian troops in July, only to find that 5000 Japanese troops had slipped away under the cover of bad weather and fog. As Morison put it, "During the rest of the war the Aleutians offer little of interest. Harassing raids on Paramushiro were varied by various shore bombardments and feeble Japanese retalitory raids on Attu, Kiska and Adak. . . In any case, it was wonderful practice ground for armed forces, after a tour of duty in the Aleutians, every other field of action seemed good." And so it was, from 1943 to 1945 with weather the common enemy, Task Force 94 made up of old four stacker cruisers and accompanying destroyers swung at anchor in Kulak Bay, Adak, between periodic bombardment of Paramushiro and Matsuwa in the Japanese Kurile Islands across the Bering Sea. In the worst of flying conditions the "Forgotten" Eleventh Air Force in tired old B-24s and B-25s carried out in excess of 1,500 sorties by war's end from Adak and Navy Patrol Wing Four flying PV-1 Ventura bombers flew numerous sorties from Attu against the Kurile bases. With the Japanese gone and the Aleutians secured, the Joint Chiefs abandoned any thought of invasion of the Kuriles, 650 miles across the Bering Sea from the western Aleutians, partly because of the eternal hostile weather that both sides knew as the common enemy. The Aleuts called the Aleutians the "Birthplace of bad weather" - wind, rain, snow, sleet,fog, clouds and storms. The Aleutians enjoy no calm or dry season and no station records as many as ten partly clear days a year. The great arc of the Aleutian chain forms the battle front where moist unstable air warmed by the the subtropical Kurashio (Japan) Current clashes with cold, dry Siberian air sweeping south across the chilled Bering Sea, Following the Attu campaign, Admiral King stated, "That chain of islands provides as rugged a theater for warfare as any in the world. Not only are the islands mountainous and rocky, but the weather in the western part is continuously bad. The fogs are almost continuous and thick. Violent winds with accompanying heavy seas make any kind of operation in that vicinity difficult and uncertain." In this hostile environment the Coast Guard had known a long and honored tradition. By the 1890s the Bering Sea Patrol of the Revenue Cutter Service had earned the respect of smugglers and the welcome of ice-locked Eskimo villages. So it was that on 11 April 1944, six days out of Seattle, Scotch Cap light guarding Unimak Pass arose to starboard at 0315, announcing ALBUQUERQUE's arrival in the bleak and barren Aleutian Islands and authorizing entrance into the Bering Sea for passage to Dutch Harbor and the beginning of a 14 month tour ending in June 1945. The frigate returned to Seattle in June for refit in preparation for transfer under Lend Lease to the USSR at Cold Bay in August. ALBUQUERQUE and EVERETT arrived in the Aleutians on schedule in April. Protracted post-shakedown availability delayed arrival of HOQUIAM until 27 August, SAUSALITO until 5 October, PASCO until 15 October and lastly, troubled-plagued TACOMA avoided the Bering Sea until 21 October.

Arriving Dutch Harbor on 11 April and following refueling and divers removing twelve feet of bilge keel that had broken away from its welding. ALBUQUERQUE was underway in late afternoon leading a convoy out of Dutch Harbor, through Unimak Pass into the Gulf of Alaska to a prearranged convoy separation point. At departure the log entry read: ". . . Unmoored and standing out of Dutch Harbor with convoy formed up in the following manner - SS TURIALBA in position 11 (convoy guide), USAT WILLIAM L, THOMPSON position 21, SS HENDERSON LUELLING position 31. SS CHEIF WASHAKIE position 12, SS WILLAIM T. SHERMAN position 22 in accordance with U.S. Naval Op. Base, Dutch Harbor, confidential orders, this vessel ahead standard speed 135 rpm, zigzagging patrol station ahead of convoy. 2000-2400 maintain speed 10 knots." All this was standard procedure, a routine the ship would follow with each departure. From April to August 1944, ALBUQUERQUE led twenty-two convoys for a total of eigthy-four days at sea in stop and go fashion from Dutch Harbor to Adak to Attu with occasional convoys in and out of Kodiak in the Gulf of Alaska. In mid-August, the frigate was assigned her first seven day patrol on Guard Ship Station off the Russian Komandorski Islands in participation with the Eleventh Air Force and Navy Air Wing 4 bombing raids over the Japanese Kurile Islands. Guard Ship Station duty included IFF (identification friend or foe signal, rescue in case of ditching and radar readiness.) By February 1945, ALBUQUERQUE completed five guard ship patrols, all under the usual miserable weather of the Bering Sea. On the 19 April, moored in Dutch Harbor, several days after the first convoy mission. the crew was aroused at 0427 for a mission to render assistance to the distressed Liberty ship JOHN W. STRAUB, reported sinking off Sanak Island near Cold Bay, 200 miles distance. Making for Unimak Pass, SS TALOA passed to port at Scotch Cap light and blinkered a message, "We have no survivors of STRAUB aboard." At exactly high noon, lookouts called out a sighting, within minutes identified as the stern section of the ill-fated STRAUB. Through scattered dunnage and lumber, several rafts, one capsized boat and countless fifty-gallon oil drums, no survivors or bodies were sighted. At this point an army crash boat from Fort Randall hove into view signaling the rescue of fifteen men from a nearly swamped lifeboat. ALBUQUERQUE then maneuvered to leeward and lowered her whaleboat for boarding STRAUB. Away from the ship for thirty minutes, the boarding party returned to report no sign of life aboard the Liberty ship and no sign of fire. The sinking claimed the lives of the captain and four ship's officers, thirty-five merchant seamen, fourteen Navy men and the cargo security officer, fifty-five in all. The Navy believed that the sinking was the result of an internal explosion. Later the Coast Guard credited the sinking to a mine, but there remained unanswered the possibility of a torpedo sinking by the Japanese submarine I-180, sunk by GILMORE DE-18 on 26 April, less than 400 miles from the STRAUB sinking. Late in th afternoon of the 19th, ALBUQUERQUE prepared to sink the derelict. when with a rumble of escaping air the last of the JOHN W. STRAUB slipped below the grey swells at 1550 hours.

ALBUQUERQUE was involved in two additional ship in distress actions, one in October the other in December 1944. HOQUIAM and SAUSALITO were on scene by early October and PASCO and TACOMA on their way north, but none were available to steam in company with ALBUQUERQUE during a violent storm episode out of Kodiak beginning on 7 October. Standing out of Women's Bay near nightfall on the 7th in company with PCE 880 bound for Unimak Pass and Dutch Harbor, herding Liberty ship tanker JOHN P. ALTGELD and freighter TALOA, a rapidly falling bsrometer vouched for coming dirty weather. At change of watch at 0800 on the 8th winds were gusting at a shrieking 80 knots, seas to fifty feet from crest to trough, clouds of spindrift flying to leeward of heightened crests of waves and convoy progress down to six knots. Shortly into the midwatch ALTGELD signaled fear of breaking up as a crack was progressively lengthening across the width of her main deck immediately abaft the midship superstructure. ALBUQUERQUE came about to keep ALTGELD in close view as the tanker maneuvered to take the seas on her quarter and then she hove to signaling that deck break had worsened and now stretched rail to rail. Little could be done in preparation for rescue other than keeping the distressed vessel under close observation in the fading afternoon light. At 1630 hours a flashing blinker message from ALTGELD read "Captain reports she is cracking more but thinks he can ride it out," followed a few minutes later with, "We have dumped some cargo to relieve stress." In the failing light the struggling tanker was instructed not to darken ship, show all navigation and other lights, and that ALBUQUERQUE would maintain searchlight cover after nightfall. At 1800 hours ALTGELD signaled more cargo discharged and cracking had stopped. When asked if advisable to proceed to destination or return to port of departure, ALTGELD quickly replied, "Ship unable to stand rough weather, Captain advises return to port of departure." Near midnight with winds falling off, the tanker set a course for return to Kodiak, speed three knots, the frigate in the lead, PCC-880 and TALOA instructed to proceed to destination, Dutch Harbor. Twenty-four hours later the frigate led the tanker into Kodiak.


A long and welcome dalliance in Dutch Harbor ended abruptly on 14 December, midway through the evening mess deck film, with the piping of special sea detail and immediate departure on orders from Harbormaster NOB in response to distress call from USAT NORTH WIND hard aground and breaking up in heavy sea on an outer island in the Shamagins off Cold Bay, a point about 200 miles east of Unimak Pass and at least fourteen hours steaming time from Dutch Harbor. Under heavy weather steaming, the small island of Chernabura was abeam at 1450 hours on the 15th. USAT DAVID W. BRANCH was identified maneuvering in sight of the wreck, the NORTH WIND clearly beyond salvage and breaking up stranded on a reef. BRANCH advised that two boats had cleared the wreck before her arrival and that her motor lifeboat was alongside to rescue the remaining crew. In the face of an icy wind the frigate stood in toward the wreck to form a lee for the lifeboat. The boat departed the wreck but lost headway when a wave swamped her engine. Oars were broken out but then the boat lost the first line fired by Lyle gun from the frigate. A second line was fired and held fast for passing along the four inch tow line. Once secured and at the shout of "haul away,"the boat in no time scraped alongside the frigate's fantail. From an all but swamped boat, eighteen NORTH WIND survivors and BRANCH's boat crew scrambled aboard the frigate. All NORTH WIND hands were accounted for when a radio message from Liberty ship CARL SCHURZ reported that remaining crew from two lifeboats were safely aboard. SCHURZ joined up and in line of three, the frigate zigzzaging in the lead, the convoy made for Dutch Harbor arriving unannounced at 0315 Sunday, 17 December. The Seattle Post Intelligencer, 5 January 1945. carried a front page story: "Dramatic details of a hazardous North Pacific rescue of 55 men from the stricken army supply freighter North Wind were disclosed by the army and the coast guard here yesterday with the arrival in Seattle of 18 of the survivors. Participating in the daring mercy operation in pounding, gale-whipped waters off Cold Bay, in the Aleutians, were a coast guard vessel and the army transport David W. Branch. Thanks to the cooperation of the two services, not a life was lost in the nearly 12 hours it took to save the crew after the ship was swept off course in a storm late on the night of December 14."

Typical sea conditions were on hand as the new year 1945 approached. ALBUQUERQUE and TACOMA had cleared Kulak Bay, Adak, bound for Attu on 21 December escorting old fleet oiler BRAZOS AO-4 and Liberty ship CARL SCHURZ. The usual dirty winter weather developed into a nasty storm by dawn on the 22nd. On the morning watch, BRAZOS steaming 400 yards off ALBUQUERQUE's starboard quarter surfaced from time to time awash in foam only to disappear in a plunge into the next giant sea. The Liberty ship trailing the tanker labored to the crest of wind-heightened seas, her stern lifting skyward to reveal an aimlessly turning propeller whose blades upon digging in on the down slope slapped the water with a pow! pow! pow! sounding very much like the distant firing of a 40mm gun. After dark, conditions were perfect for a surprise burst of St. Elmo's Fire. The first discharge of white light outlined the mast, spar and radar antenna. A few moments later a second discharge sped around the top of the forward main battery gun tub. St Elmo's Fire commonly occurs in cold water seas, most frequently in bad weather. Following a brief rest in Attu, ALBUQUERQUE made for Akak on the 27th escorting SCHURZ for a quick turn around while TACOMA readied to relieve PASCO on Guard Ship Station off the Komandorskis. On 6 January the frigate departed Adak for return to Attu, arriving on the 7th to moor alongside PASCO. PASCO had been through a particularly violent bit of bad weather on patrol that came close to disaster when experiencing more than one roll in excess of 60 degrees. As it turned out ALBUQUERQUE was in for an extended tour of lonely patrols lasting until mid-February in unending beastly weather, twice relieved by TACOMA and twice by EVERETT. TACOMA, ailing after four months in the Bering Sea, limped off stateside for extensive overhaul, while PASCO shortly received orders to slip away to Seattle for duty along the Northwest coast. Upon departure of the two, Commander Task Force 91 sent a communication -- 0501042 CONFIDENTIAL -- CTF91 SENDS TO COMCORTDIV 27 WHO GIVES BY HAND TO TACOMA X ALSO ACTION SAUSALITO, HOQUIAM, ALBUQUERQUE, EVERETT AND PASCO X ALL HANDS CARRY OUT WITH YOU IN ADDITION TO MEMORIES OF FOG, RAIN AND WIND A SINCERE NAVY QUOTE WELL DONE UNQUOTE. Checking in one-by-one in January 1945, sentenced to the Aleutians to end their WWII days before transfer to the USSR, came the Philippine veterans BISBEE, GALLUP, ROCKFORD, MUSKOGEE, CARSON CITY AND BURLINGTON. By April it was clear that the war was winding down in the Aleutians. Port time was more the order of the day with fewer ships to escort,as need for supplies declined and reduction in forces along the chain progressed. Further evidence that wartime conditions were waning occurred with the return of the Aleuts who had been evacuated to southwestern Alaska in 1942. ALBUQUERQUE escorted the first returning Aleuts aboard the DAVID W. BRANCH into Nazan Bay, Atka Island, on 27 April. By early June all eleven Bering Sea frigates were awaiting orders to proceed to Seattle for refit and July-September transfer to the USSR at Cold Bay.

Patrol Frigates in Southwest Pacific - Leyte campaign

Twenty-one frigates participated in General MacArthur's New Guinea campaign and return to the Philippines in 1944. These included all Consolidated Steel built frigates, Nos. 34 to 51, except for CORPUS CHRISTI (PF-44). CORPUS CHRISTI steamed on by the jumping off points of Noumea, New Calidonia and Cairns, Australia, where her sisters were enlisting one-by-one in Admiral Barbey's Seventh Fleet amphibious division. PF-44 continued on around the southern coast of Australia to Fremantle, the port for Perth, for a lengthy tour of submarine training exercises and lonely patrol in the Indian Ocean. All alone on 13 February 1945, she rescued ninety-two survivors of the torpedoed Liberty ship, PETER SYLVESTER. Joined by HUTCHINSON from Leyte in December 1944, these two set the frigate record for continuous time away from the States at sixteen months, returning to California in October 1945. Escorting six British transports bound for New Guinea, New Hebrides and the Soloman Islands,four Great Lakes built frigates, ALLENTOWN, CHARLOTTESVILLE, MACHIAS and SANDUSKY, arrived in New Guinea in September 1944. Now the list was complete; twenty-one patrol frigates wed to the Seventh Fleet for operations stretching from the tail of bird-shaped New Guinea at Milne Bay to the last stop in New Guinea at Cape Sansapor on the bird's head on Vogelkop Peninsula. From New Guinea MacArthur's scheme drew the frigates northwest to Morotai in the Halmahera Islands, and lastly 500 miles northwest to Leyte. Through it all the call to duty saw frigate sailors through long spells of anti-submarine patrol (ping patrol), sleepless invasion screening, plodding escort duty to and fro across the Equator from Hollandia, New Guinea, 1400 miles northwest to Leyte, occasional bombardment assignments and often days on end at general quarters warding off air attacks in Leyte Gulf and San Pedro Bay, all endured on ships lacking suitable ventilation below decks.

For the Leyte campaign, Vice Admiral Kincaid was in command of naval operations. Kincaid's reorganized Seventh Fleet consisted of three task forces - 77, 78 and 79, with Kincaid commanding TF77, Admiral Barbey TF78 and Admiral Wilkinson TF79. Over 700 ships made up the Leyte campaign of which ten frigates steamed with TF78 Northern Attack Force, 17-29 October 1944 -- GALLUP and BISBEE TG78.4, the Dinagat Attack Group, landing Rangers on islands commanding entry to Leyte Gulf prior to invasion -- CARSON CITY and BURLINGTON TG78.6 Reinforcement Group One -- MUSKOGEE and SAN PEDRO, Reinforcement Group Two -- EUGENE, EL PASO, VAN BUREN and ORANGE, Reinforcement Group Three. Following the October invasion, the primary role for all twenty-one frigates was escort duty back and forth from Hollandia to San Pedro Bay and Tacloban at the northern edge of Leyte Gulf, most trips under sporadic enemy aircraft attack and occasional kamikaze attacks on transports, LSTs and large freighters. On 5 December 1944, CORONADO and SAN PEDRO, en route to Leyte Gulf, raced to the sinking SS SAUGRAIN torpedoed by a Japanese OSCAR torpedo bomber, successfully saving 418 army troops. On 12 November 1944, OGDEN and BURLINGTON on patrol as anti-aircraft screen off Dulag, Leyte, engaged aircraft attacking unloading convoy. At the end of the day OGDEN proudly accepted the well-earned message: FROM COMMANDER ESCORT DIVISION TWENTY-FIVE, USS LONG BEACH, FLAGSHIP. THE OGDEN PF39 TO BE COMMENDED FOR SHOOTING DOWN THREE (3) ENEMY PLANES, DULAG, LEYTE ISLAND, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.

As the year 1944 drew to a close, the days were numbered for the frigates in the Southwest Pacific. The Pacific War was rapidly moving north ever closer to Japan waters, where fast task forces and big guns ruled the seas and long range bombers raided the Japanese homelands from the Marianas. By December, 24 knot DEs with 5 inch guns made first appearance in Equatorial waters replacing the 20 knot frigates. Of the frigates, first to leave was CortDiv 43 - ROCKFORD, GALLUP, BISBEE, BURLINGTON, MUSKOGEE, CARSON CITY - arriving Pearl Harbor on 15 December and shortly on north to join up with Escort Division 27 in the Bering Sea. CortDiv 25, made up of the six frigates that collectively earned the most battle stars - GLENDALE, LONG BEACH, CORONADO, SAN PEDRO, OGDEN, BELFAST - were next to leave, arriving Boston on 24 January 1945, for refit in preparation for transfer to the USSR at Cold Bay, Alaska. CortDiv 29, made up of EUGENE, EL PASO, VAN BUREN, ORANGE, were on their way north by early January for refit as weather ships and other duties. HUTCHINSON and CORPUS CHRISTI carried on in the Indian Ocean until August 1945. Cort Div 33, SANDUSKY, MACHIAS, ALLENTOWN and CHARLOTTESVILLE, remained in Philippine waters until early March 1945, escorting convoys to Mindoro, Subic Bay and Lingayen Gulf as American forces moved north to Manila and Luzon. All four departed together, first for Pearl Harbor and on to Seattle in April for refit en route to Cold Bay and transfer to the USSR on 12 July 1945. Collectively, the twenty-one frigates of the Philippine theater were awarded fifty-two battle stars as follows:

GLENDALE 5 -- SAN PEDRO 4 -- CORONADO 4
LONG BEACH 3 -- EL PASO 3 -- OGDEN 3
VAN BUREN 3 -- ORANGE 2 -- EUGENE 2
BLFAST 2 -- BISBEE 2 -- BURLINGTON 2
CARSON CITY 2 -- HUTCHINSON 2 -- GALLUP 2
ROCKFORD 2 -- CHARLOTTESVILLE 2 MACHIAS 2
SANDUSKY 2 -- ALLENTOWN 2 -- MUSKOGEE 1

Patrol Frigate building program

The frigate building program proceeded with all deliberate speed, 1943-44, at the two California yards, Consolidated Steel Company of Willmington/San Pedro and Kaiser Corporation at Richmond on San Francisco Bay. In both yards from keel-laying to commissioning averaged no more than seven months, and in the case of most of the eighteen Consolidated Steel ships, post-shakedown availability was of short duration so that frigates LONG BEACH, GLENDALE, CORONADO and SAN PEDRO were on there way to the South Pacific as early as January and February 1944. The case for the Kaiser yard was not quite so clear cut. Of PFs 3 to 8, only ALBUQUERQUE and EVERETT advanced on schedule and on their way to long haul assignment in the Bering Sea by April 1944. TACOMA, bearing the class name and the first launched at Richmond, plagued by engine and boiler room problems, missed her assignment until October. Likewise, SAUSALITO, HOQUIAM and PASCO also suffered protracted post-shakedown availability that posponed arrival in the Aleutians until autumn 1944. Kaiser frigates 9 to 14, following shakedown, were assigned to Western Sea Frontier operations out of San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

Six Great Lakes yards, two on Lake Superior, two on Lake Erie and two on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan were awarded forty-nine frigate contracts. Four contracts held by American Shipbuilding of Lorain, Ohio, were cancelled before the program ended. Plagued by delays, Great Lakes built frigates averaged fourteen months from keel-laying to commissioning. BAYONNE and ALEXANDRIA held the record at 21 months 8 days and 20 months 18 days respectively. Once launched each new frigate faced no less than a 2000 mile trip to salt water. Without a Saint Lawrence Seaway to accommodate transit to Atlantic ports for outfitting, the Mississippi River was the only route to the sea. The frigates were ferried to Chicago, then with pontoons welded to the sides, raising the draft to less than 9 feet (standard constant waterway depth) and mast lowered to allow passage under bridges, each frigate slipped into the Chicago Sanitary Ship Canal and on to the Illinois River waterway through locks to reach the Mississippi at Alton, and there lashed among barges and towboat for the 1000 mile run down the steamboat highway to the Gulf of Mexico. Some were outfitted in New Orleans and nearby Louisiana yards, while others had to proceed another 500 miles to Galveston and Houston for outfitting. Delays not withstanding, a considerable number completed shakedown and reported to duty by mid-year 1944, some for Atlantic convoy assignment, others converted for weather duty in the North Atlantic and four of the Great Lakes frigates, the SANDUSKY, MACHIAS, ALLENTOWN and CHARLOTTESVILLE abandoned the Atlantic to join up with the California frigates attached to the amphibious division of the Seventh Fleet in the South Pacific.

Patrol Frigates loaned to USSR, Lend Lease -1945 -Returned 1949

It all came about as a result of the Yalta Conference of February 1945. The United States gained Soviet promise of entry into the Pacific war once Germany was defeated by pledging military goods and support of Russian acquisition of the Japanese Kurile Islands that enclose the Sea of Okhotsk. Thus Navy Detachment 3294 known as Project Hula was born. Rapid preparation of Cold Bay near the tip of the Alaskan Peninsula was under way in March as the secret exchange base, Captain William Maxwell USN in command and Commander John Hutson USCG, executive officer. As early as January 1945, Admiral King had informed Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher of his intention to transfer up to 250 navy vessels to the USSR during the period April to December 1945. Cold Bay was chosen over Dutch Harbor and Kodiak because of remoteness and no nearby civilian population, a suitable Navy auxiliary air facility, a large anchorage in Kimzaroff Lagoon and protected waters for steaming and firing practice. And lastly, as one visitor put it, Cold Bay was safe from prying eyes since no one remembers having seen the sun break through the low overcast.The Navy Construction Battallion was called upon to rehabilitate Fort Randall barracks and outbuildings. In no time and in 'can do'fashion the SeaBees set up quonset huts, built a radio station, several movie theaters and
scooped a softball field dubbed Yankee Stadium. The Russians agreed to transport sailors to Cold Bay aboard freighters returning to West Coast ports from Vladivostok
for Lend Lease goods, each ship scheduled to carry 600 men. So rapidly did events roll along, that by June 1945 in excess of 4500 Russians sailors were on site in Cold Bay. By the end of Project Hula 15,000 Russian naval personal passed through Cold Bay, trained to operate a variety of transfer vessels. From May to September 1945, 149 vessels were transferred to the USSR -- 28 patrol frigates and numerous minesweepers, LCI(L)s, subchasers and four floating workshops. The LCL(L)s were the first to haul down the flag. The frigates wound up Project Hula in September. The Tacoma-class frigates represented the most valuable vessels transfered. Once the American flag was lowered and the Soviet ensign raised, the new Russian units departed in groups for Petropovlovsk on Kamchatka Peninsula for assignment to the Soviet Far East Fleet. Project Hula ended on 5 September 1945, when Captain Maxwell received the following dispatch: ABSOLUTE STOP ON LEND LEASE DELIVERY ARMS AMMUNITION AND SHIPS HAS BEEN DIRECTED INCIDENT TO SURRENDER OF JAPAN X UPON RECEIPT OF THIS DESPATCH CEASE FURTHER DELIVERY OF VESSELS UNDER HULA AGREEMENT...

The twenty-eight frigates loaned to the USSR in 1945 and returned to the US Navy at
Yokosuka, Japan in the fall of 1949 (minus BELFAST PF-35, damaged beyond repair):

CHARLOTTESVILLE PF-25 -- LONG BEACH PF-34
BELFAST PF-35 -- GLENDALE PF-36
SAN PEDRO PF-37 -- CORONADO PF-38
OGDEN PF-39 -- ALLENTOWN PF-52
MACHIAS PF-53 -- SANDUSKY PF-54
TACOMA PF-3 -- SAUSALITO PF-4
HOQUIAM PF-5 -- PASCO PF-6
ALBUQUERQUE PF-7 -- EVERETT PF-8
BISBEE PF-45 -- GALLUP PF-47
ROCKFORD PF-48 -- MUSKOGEE PF-49
CARSON CITY PF-50 -- BURLINGTON PF-51
BAYONNE PF-21 -- POUGHKEEPSIE PF-26
GLOUCESTER PF-22 -- NEWPORT PF-27
BATH PF-55 -- EVANSVILLE PF-70

Patrol Frigates to Royal Navy (Colony-class) 1943- Returned 1946

ANGUILLA (ex PF-72) --- ANTIGUA (ex PF-73) --- ASCENSION (ex PF-74)
BAHAMAS (ex PF-75) --- BARBADOS (ex PF-76) --- CAICOS (ex PF-77)
CAYMAN (ex PF- 78) --- DOMINICA (ex PF-79) --- LABUAN (ex PF-80)
TOBAGO (ex PF-81) --- MONSERRAT (ex PF-82) --- NYASALAND (ex PF-83)
PAPUA (ex PF-84) --- PITCAIRN (ex PF-85) --- ST. HELENA (ex PF-86
SARAWAK (ex PF-87) --- SEYCHELLES (ex PF-88) --- PERIM (ex PF-89)
SOMALILAND (ex PF-90) --- TORTOLA (ex PF-91) --- ZANZIBAR (ex PF-92)

Launching at the new Walsh-Kaiser yard in Providence, Rhode Island, stormed ahead with all twenty-one of the frigates afloat by November 1943. The Royal Navy proclaimed the speed of building phenomenal as the Union Jack was run up. In home waters the American made all-welded frigates claimed six U-boats by war's end, the first by HMS ASCENSION on 25 November 1944, and the last by HMS ANGUILA on 29 April 1945. Late in the war, HMS CAICOS was converted to a Fighter Direction Ship and anchored off Harwich in the North Sea to warn of approaching V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets being fired from Holland.

Origin and creation of the Patrol Frigate

The seventy-five Coast Guard-manned patrol frigates of World War II deserve a place in memory, if for no other reason, they were the US Navy's first line of combat vessels designated as frigates since the age of sail. Not forgotten by patrol frigate sailors, the frigates as a class won their share of battle stars and honors. From early 1944 to war's end, ships of the "forgotten fleet" performed a full range of vital assignments in every major water body on earth, be it weather patrol in the icy chill and storms of the North Atlantic, or escort duty from Norfolk across the Atlantic to Oran in the Mediterranean, or ASW (anti-submarine warfare), convoy duty and invasion screening from New Guinea to Leyte Gulf, or guard ship station off the Russian Komandorski Island in the Bering Sea assisting the 11th Air Force bombing missions over the Japanese Kurile Islands.

The American frigates were designed after the British River-class frigate, of which fifty-two had slipped down the ways by late 1942, and quickly called to the attention of the American navy, partly because of the similarity to the DEs in size speed and armament. Upon Admiral King's recommendation, following naval architects Gibbs and Cox redesign of the British frigate as an all-welded vessel subject to prefabrication and mass production, President Roosevelt ordered the Maritime Commision to award contracts to merchant shipyards in December 1942. Two Canadian built prototypes, ASHVILLE PF-1 and NATCHEZ PF-2 were awarded to the U.S. Navy in "reverse lend lease." Patrol frigate orders soon numbered 100, four later cancelled and twenty-one approved for construction at the new Walsh-Kaiser yard, Providence, Rhode Island, for transfer to the Royal Navy under Lend Lease.

On the drawing boards the new American frigates were initially classed as gunboats to be named for small cities in keeping with the 1933 ERIE-class gunboat. But since the American design so closely resembled the British version, designation was changed to frigate (PF) in mid=April 1943, the P standing for a patrol-type vessel, not to be confused with the destroyer escort (DE) where D designated a destroyer-type combat vessel. Beyond that, the size, speed and armament of the two were surprizingly similar, The frigates displaced 1430 tons, 303'11" in length, 37'6" in breadth, draft 13'8" and twin screws powered by triple expansion steam engines capable of cranking out an acceptable 20.3 knots at flank speed. Limited to a single rudder and deeper draft, the frigates were no match for the twin rudder DEs in nimble maneuvering, On the other hand, the deep draft and wide beam of the frigates provided a noteworthy seakindliness, and not the least, the high freeboard of the lengthy forecastle deck protected to a large degree against green water piling on board in heavy weather. Nearly comparable in armament to the DEs, The frigates mounted two 3-inch 50s forward and one aft, port and starboard midship twin 40m Bofors and nine 20mm Oerlikons. Anti-submarine armament included a hedgehog forward (a 24 spigot morter, MK 10, firing an eliptical pattern over the bow, range 250 yards) and depth charge racks and K-guns aft on the fantail. Compliment of each frigate numbered 190 officers and men.

Patrol Frigates manned by US Coast Guard WW II

USS TACOMA PF-3 -- USS SAUSALITO PF-4
USS HOQUIAM PF-5 -- USS PASCO PF-6
USS ALBUQUERQUE PF-7 -- USS EVERETT PF-8
USS POCATELLO PF-9 -- USS BROWNSVILLE PF-10
USS GRAND FORKS PF-11 -- USS CASPER PF-12
USS PUEBLO PF-13 -- USS GRAND ISLAND PF-14
USS ANNAPOLIS PF-15 -- USS BANGOR PF-16
USS Key West PF-17 -- USS ALEXANDRIA PF-18
USS HURON PF-19 -- USS GULFPORT PF-20
USS BAYONNE PF-21 -- USS GlOUCESTER PF-22
USS SHREVEPORT PF-23 -- USS MUSKEGON PF-24
USS CHARLOTTESVILLE PF-25 -- USS POUGHKEEPSIE PF-26
USS NEWPORT PF-27 -- USS EMPORIA PF-28
USS GROTON PF-29 -- USS HINGHAM PF-30
USS GRAND RAPIDS PF-31 -- USS WOONSOCKET PF-32
USS DEARBORN PF-33 -- USS LONG BEACH PF-34
USS BELFAST PF-35 -- USS GLENDALE PF-36
USS SAN PEDRO PF-37 -- USS CORONADO PF-38
USS OGDEN PF-39 -- USS EUGENE PF-40
USS EL PASO PF-41 -- USS VAN BUREN PF-42
USS ORANGE PF-43 -- USS CORPUS CHRISTI PF-44
USS HUTCHINSON PF-45 -- USS BISBEE PF-46
USS GALLUP PF-47 -- USS ROCKFORD PF-48
USS MUSKOGEE PF-49 -- USS CARSON CITY PF-50
USS BURLINGTON PF-51 --USS ALLENTOWN PF-52
USS Machias PF-53 -- USS SANDUSKY PF-54
USS BATH PF-55 -- USS COVINGTON PF-56
USS SHEBOYGAN PF-57 -- USS ABLIENE PF-58
USS BEAUFORT PF-59 -- USS CHARLOTTE PF-60
USS MANITOWOC PF-61 -- USS GLADWYNE PF-62
USS MOBERLY PF-63 -- USS KNOXVILLE PF-64
USS UNIONTOWN PF-65 -- USS READING PF-66
USS PEORIA PF-67 -- USS BRUNSWICK PF-68
USS DAVENPORT PF-69 -- USS EVANSVILLE PF-70
USS NEW BEDFORD PF-71 -- USS LORAIN PF-93
USS MILLEDGEVILLE PF-99 -- USS RACINE PF-100
USS GREENSBORO PF-101 -- USS F0RSYTH PF-102
Posted by dhhendrickson at 11:29 AM 0 comments
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