U S NAVY 4th FLEET AT RECIFE - SHIP INDEX PC PCE PG PY PYC

28)PC 618 PATROL CRAFT

Photo. www.navsource.org  By Bob Daly PC 1181. Photo from U.S. Small Combatants: An Illustrated History; by Norman Friedman. Replacement photo by Robert Hurst.

Laid down 29 April 1942 at George Lawley and Sons, Inc., Neponset, Massachusetts

Launched 1 August 1942

Commissioned USS PC 618 7 September 1942

Reclassified as an Experimental Submarine Chaser, EPC 618  in April 1947

Named Weatherford 15 February 1956

Decommissioned and struck from the Navy Register 1 November 1965

Sunk as a target 1 November 1968

Weatherford was the longest serving PC in the United States Navy.

Specifications:

Displacement 280 t.(lt) , 450 t.(fl)

Length 173' 8"

Beam 23'

Draft 10' 10".

Speed 20.2 kts.

Complement 65.

Armament one 3"/50 dual purpose gun mount, one single 40mm gun mount; three 20mm guns, two rocket launchers, four depth charge projectiles, two depth charge tracks

Propulsion two Fairbanks Morse 38D8 1/8 diesel engines (Serial No. 832369 and 832370), Westinghouse single reduction gear, two shafts.

On 27 July 43, PC--618 put to sea with Big Horn and PC--617 as part of Convoy UGS--13 in hopes of a more successful U-boat hunt. Again, however, she and her associates failed to make a kill. The decoy ship Big Horn again straggled about 50 miles behind the convoy while the two patrol craft waited just over the horizon. On one occasion, Big Horn sighted a submarine, and one of the escorts attacked the U-boat, unsuccessfully, with her mousetrap battery.

Otherwise, the cruise proved uneventful, and PC--618 returned to New York in August with no submarines to her credit. After another hunting cruise in the vicinity of Recife, Brazil, conducted in the latter half of August and the month of September 43, PC-618 returned to New York early in October for additional training. In November, the Big Horn decoy/killer group was reconstituted for one final, but also unsuccessful, cruise in the area around Bermuda. That assignment ended late in December at Boston, and the group was dissolved for the last time.

FOLLOWING PAGES ON THE SAME ARTICLE

27)PC 617 PATROL CRAFT

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30)PCE 843 PATROL CRAFT ESC

31)PCE 845 PATROL CRAFT ESC