USS ''SC-500'' 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 ...

submarine chaser A submarine chaser or subchaser is a small naval vessel that is specifically intended for anti-submarine warfare. Many of the American submarine chasers used in World War I found their way to Allied nations by way of Lend-Lease in World War II. ...

in commission from 1942 to 1945 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. She later served in the Soviet Navy as ''BO-319''.

Construction and commissioning

''SC-500'' was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

on 27 February 1942 by the

Fisher Boat Works MV ''Cape Pine''Commodores BoatsCape Pine (accessed 2013-02-20) is a charter boat operated by the Maritime Heritage Society of Vancouver. She began life as USS ''SC-715'', a SC-497 class submarine chaser, SC-497-class submarine chaser of the Unite ...

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

, and launched on 11 October 1942. She was commissioned on 31 March 1942.

Service history

After

service in the U.S Navy, ''SC-500'' was 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 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. Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, ''SC-500'' was decommissioned on 10 June 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. Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, she was designated as a ''bolshiye okhotniki za povodnimi lodkami'' ("large submarine hunter") and renamed ''BO-319'' in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay and, after a stop at Adak to refuel and reprovision, proceeded to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she served as a patrol vessel in the Soviet Far East.

Disposal

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 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 informed the

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

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. Deteroriating relations between the two countries as the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

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 others, at the suggestion of the Soviets, were destroyed off the Soviet coast under the observation of American naval authorities. In 1956, ''BO-319'' was destroyed, probably off

Nakhodka Nakhodka ( rus, Нахо́дка, p=nɐˈxotkə) is a port city in Primorsky Krai, Russia, located on the Trudny Peninsula jutting into the Nakhodka Bay of the Sea of Japan, about east of Vladivostok, the administrative center of the krai. Po ...

, under the latter arrangement.Russell, Richard A., ''Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan'', Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, , pp. 37-38, 40.

References

*
Motor Gunboat/Patrol Gunboat Photo Archive: SC-500
{{DEFAULTSORT:SC-0500 SC-497-class submarine chasers Ships built in Detroit 1942 ships World War II patrol vessels of the United States SC-497-class submarine chasers of the Soviet Navy Ships transferred from the United States Navy to the Soviet Navy Cold War patrol vessels of the Soviet Union Ships transferred under Project Hula

Construction and commissioning

Service history

Disposal

See also

References