USS ''Bisbee'' (PF-46) was a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

in commission from 1944 to 1945 and from 1950 to 1951. She also served in the Soviet Navy as ''EK-17'' and in the Colombian National Armada as ARC ''Capitán Tono''.

Construction and commissioning

Originally classified as a patrol gunboat, PG-154, ''Bisbee'' was reclassified as a patrol frigate, PF-46, on 15 April 1943. She was launched on 7 September 1943, at the

Consolidated Steel Corporation Consolidated Steel Corporation (formed 18 December 1928) was an American steel and shipbuilding business. Consolidated built ships during World War II in two locations: Wilmington, California and Orange, Texas. It was created in 1929 by the merg ...

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, sponsored by Mrs. Richard Murphy, and commissioned on 15 February 1944.

Service history

U.S. Navy, World War II, 1944–1945

Assigned to the

United States Pacific Fleet The United States Pacific Fleet (USPACFLT) is a theater-level component command of the United States Navy, located in the Pacific Ocean. It provides naval forces to the Indo-Pacific Command. Fleet headquarters is at Joint Base Pearl Harbor� ...

and manned by the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mult ...

, ''Bisbee'' joined the United States Seventh Fleet at Nouméa,

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, on 27 June 1944. She took part in the

landings Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called "landing", "touchdown" or ...

Biak Island Biak is an island located in Cenderawasih Bay near the northern coast of Papua, an Indonesian province, and is just northwest of New Guinea. Biak is the largest island in its small archipelago, and has many atolls, reefs, and corals. The large ...

of 12–31 August 1944, and then patrolled off the

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

coast until October 1944. During the

invasion An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...

Leyte Leyte ( ) is an island in the Visayas group of islands in the Philippines. It is eighth-largest and sixth-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 2,626,970 as of 2020 census. Since the accessibility of land has be ...

in the Philippine Islands, she served as a patrol and harbor control vessel until detached for escort duty on 22 November 1944. ''Bisbee'' arrived at

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Re ...

Territory of Hawaii The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory ( Hawaiian: ''Panalāʻau o Hawaiʻi'') was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from April 30, 1900, until August 21, 1959, when most of its territory, excluding ...

, on 15 December 1944. After undergoing repairs, ''Bisbee'' departed Pearl Harbor on 6 January 1945 for

Dutch Harbor Dutch Harbor is a harbor on Amaknak Island in Unalaska, Alaska. It was the location of the Battle of Dutch Harbor in June 1942, and was one of the few sites in the United States to be subjected to aerial bombardment by a foreign power during Worl ...

, Territory of Alaska, arriving there on 13 January 1945. From then until July 1945, she escorted

merchant ship A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are u ...

s and

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

transports between Dutch Harbor, Adak,

Amchitka Amchitka (; ale, Amchixtax̂; russian: Амчитка) is a volcanic, tectonically unstable and uninhabited island in the Rat Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in southwest Alaska. It is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refu ...

, and Attu, and acted as

guard ship A guard ship is a warship assigned as a stationary guard in a port or harbour, as opposed to a coastal patrol boat, which serves its protective role at sea. Royal Navy In the Royal Navy of the eighteenth century, peacetime guard ships were usual ...

for

Fleet Air Wing 4 is a unit of the Fleet Air Force of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. It is based at Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Kanagawa Prefecture. It consists of Air Patrol Squadron 3, the Atsugi Base Squadron and the Iwo Jima Base Squadron (With a det ...

in the North Pacific Ocean. Stage and film actor Buddy Ebsen served as the Executive Officer aboard Bisbee during this deployment to the Pacific War Zone. Selected for transfer to the Soviet Navy in Project Hula – a secret program for the transfer of U.S. Navy ships to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay, Alaska, in anticipation of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

joining the war against Japan – ''Bisbee'', with Escort Division 43, departed Adak on 6 July 1945 bound for

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, arriving there on 12 July 1945. After undergoing repairs and conversion in preparation for her transfer, ''Bisbee'' steamed to Cold Bay, where she arrived on 13 August 1945. She soon began training her new Soviet crew.Russell, Richard A., ''Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan'', Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, , p. 39.

Soviet Navy, 1945–1949

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, ''Bisbee'' was decommissioned on 26 August 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under

Lend-Lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...

immediately along with her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

s , , , , and . Commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, ''Bisbee'' was designated as a ''storozhevoi korabl'' ("escort ship") and renamed ''EK-17'' in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she served as a patrol vessel in the Soviet Far East. In February 1946, the United States began negotiations for the return of ships loaned to the Soviet Union for use during World War II. On 8 May 1947,

United States Secretary of the Navy The secretary of the Navy (or SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the United States Department of the Navy, Department of the Navy, a military department (component organization) within the United States D ...

James V. Forrestal James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense. Forrestal came from a very strict middle-class Irish Catholic fami ...

informed the

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that the United States Department of the Navy wanted 480 of the 585 combatant ships it had transferred to the Soviet Union for World War II use returned, ''EK-17'' among them. Negotiations for the return of the ships were protracted, but on 1 November 1949 the Soviet Union finally returned ''EK-17'' to the U.S. Navy at Yokosuka,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

U.S. Navy, Korean War, 1950–1951

Reverting to her original name, ''Bisbee'' lay idle in the

Pacific Reserve Fleet The United States Navy maintains a number of its ships as part of a reserve fleet, often called the "Mothball Fleet". While the details of the maintenance activity have changed several times, the basics are constant: keep the ships afloat and ...

at Yokosuka until being recommissioned on 18 October 1950 for service in the

Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...

. She got underway for

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

on 23 November 1950, and served on

patrol A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as Law enforcement officer, law enforcement officers, military personnel, or Security guard, security personnel, that are assigned to monitor or secure a specific geographic area. Etymology Fro ...

, escort, and bombardment duty off Korea – also making occasional voyages to the Philippine Islands,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, and the Pescadores – until decommissioned on 20 October 1951.

Colombian Navy, 1952–1963

After repairs at Yokosuka, the ship was transferred to

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

on 13 February 1952 under the

Mutual Defense Assistance Program The Mutual Defense Assistance Act was a United States Act of Congress signed by President Harry S. Truman on 6 October 1949. For US Foreign policy, it was the first U.S. military foreign aid legislation of the Cold War era, and initially to Eur ...

, serving in the Colombian Navy as ARC ''Capitán Tono''. She relieved her

ARC ''Almirante Padilla'', ex-, and served on patrol off the east coast of

. Exchanges of fire with

shore batteries In military organizations, an artillery battery is a unit or multiple systems of artillery, mortar systems, rocket artillery, multiple rocket launchers, surface-to-surface missiles, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, etc., so grouped to faci ...

were a frequent occurrence, and her crew suffered some casualties. On 13 January 1953, ''Capitán Tono'' ended her tour of duty and was replaced by another of her sister ships, ARC ''Almirante Brión'', ex-USS ''Burlington'' (PF-51). The ship remained in Colombian service after the Korean War and was scrapped in 1963.

Awards

The U.S. Navy awarded ''Bisbee'' two

battle star A service star is a miniature bronze or silver five-pointed star inch (4.8 mm) in diameter that is authorized to be worn by members of the eight uniformed services of the United States on medals and ribbons to denote an additional award or ser ...

s for her World War II service and three for her Korean War service.

References

External links

*
USS ''Bisbee'' (PF-46), United States Coast Guard site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bisbee (Pf-46) Tacoma-class frigates Ships built in Los Angeles 1943 ships World War II frigates and destroyer escorts of the United States Tacoma-class frigates of the Soviet Navy World War II frigates of the Soviet Union Cold War frigates of the Soviet Union Cold War frigates and destroyer escorts of the United States Korean War frigates and destroyer escorts of the United States Tacoma-class frigates of the Colombian Navy Korean War frigates of Colombia Ships transferred under Project Hula