USS Palisade (AM-270)

USS ''Palisade'' (AM-270) was an built for the United States Navy during World War II and in commission from 1944 to 1945. In 1945 she was transferred to the Soviet Union and served in the Soviet Navy after that as ''T-279''.

Construction and commissioning

''Palisade'' was laid down at Chickasaw, Alabama by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation on 21 September 1942. She was launched on 26 June 1943, sponsored by Mrs. W. C. Ellis, and ' commissioned on 9 March 1944.

Service history

U.S. Navy, World War II, 1944-1945

Following shakedown, ''Palisade'' conducted minesweeping operations at Naval Station Argentia in the Dominion of Newfoundland as part of Mine Squadron 33, then was fitted out as a temporary weather ship. She patrolled in the North Atlantic on weather reporting duties for the remainder of 1944 with occasional calls at United States East Coast ports. In January 1945 she was refitted with minesweeping equipment and, after overhaul in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, deployed to the Panama Canal Zone on 27 February 1945.

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, Territory of Alaska, in anticipation of the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan – ''Palisade'' transiting the Panama Canal on 8 March 1945 and proceeded to Seattle, Washington, where she prepared for transfer. With preparations complete, she departed Seattle on 7 April 1945 bound for Kodiak, Alaska, then proceeded from Kodiak to Cold Bay, where she begin familiarization training of 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, 1945-1960

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, ''Palisade'' was decommissioned on 22 May 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately. Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, she was designated as a ' ("minesweeper") and renamed ''T-279'' in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she soon entered service with the Soviet Pacific Ocean Fleet.

In February 1946, the United States began negotiations for the return of ships loaned to the Soviet Union for use during World War II, and on 8 May 1947, United States Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal informed the United States Department of State 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. Deteriorating relations between the two countries as the Cold War broke out led to protracted negotiations over the ships, and by the mid-1950s the U.S. Navy found it too expensive to bring home ships that had become worthless to it anyway. Many ex-American ships were merely administratively "returned" to the United States and instead sold for scrap in the Soviet Union, while the U.S. Navy did not seriously pursue the return of others – such as ''T-279'' (ex-''Palisade'') – because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery.Russell, Richard A., ''Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan'', Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, , pp. 37-38, 39.

Disposal

The Soviet Union reported that ''T-279'' has been sunk off Kham Island, Korea, on 14 or 15 August 1945, by a naval mine previously laid by American aircraft to target Japanese ships. However, post-Cold War research has found that the ship survived the war and was stricken by the Soviet Navy in 1957.

References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Palisade (AM-270)
Admirable-class minesweepers
Ships built in Chickasaw, Alabama
1943 ships
World War II minesweepers of the United States
Admirable-class minesweepers of the Soviet Navy
World War II minesweepers of the Soviet Union
Cold War minesweepers of the Soviet Union
Weather ships
Ships transferred under Project Hula
Maritime incidents in August 1945