USS Admirable

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USS Admirable (AM-136) underway in 1944.
History
United States
NameUSS Admirable (AMc-113)
BuilderTampa Shipbuilding Company, Tampa, Florida
ReclassifiedAM-136, 21 February 1942
Laid down8 April 1942
Launched18 October 1942
Sponsored byMrs. Ann Pillsbury Fehr
Commissioned20 April 1943
Decommissioned19 July 1945[1]
FateTransferred to Soviet Navy, 19 July 1945[1]
ReclassifiedMSF-136, 7 February 1955
Stricken1 January 1983
History
Soviet Union
NameT-331[3]
Acquired19 July 1945[1]
Commissioned19 July 1945[1]
FateStricken 1958[2]
General characteristics
Class and typeAdmirable-class minesweeper
Displacement650 tons
Length184 ft 6 in (56.24 m)
Beam33 ft (10 m)
Draft9 ft 9 in (2.97 m)
Propulsion
Speed15 knots (27.8 km/h)
Complement104
Armament
Service record
Part of:

USS Admirable (AM-136) was the

minesweeper built for the United States Navy during World War II. In commission from 1943 to 1945, she was transferred to the Soviet Navy in 1945 and served as T-331 until stricken in 1958.[3]

Construction and commissioning

Originally classified as a "coastal minesweeper," AMc-113, Admirable was reclassified as a minesweeper, AM-136, on 21 February 1942. She was

launched on 18 October 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Ann Pillsbury Fehr, daughter of Commander Horace W. Pillsbury, and commissioned
on 20 April 1943.

Service history

U.S. Navy, World War II, 1943-1945

Admirable departed Tampa on 23 April 1943 and conducted a

drydocked
for repairs.

On 13 February 1944, Admirable was assigned to

Kiska, Cold Bay, and Attu Island. On four occasions during her 18-month tour in the Aleutians, Admirable went alongside the destroyer tender USS Black Hawk (AD-9) at Adak briefly to repair damage caused by the cold weather, heavy seas, and violent, gusting winds known as "williwaws
".

In July 1944, Admirable began to clear the

invasion of the Philippines, and stopped at Kodiak on 7 August 1944. Baltimore pulled out of St. Paul's Harbor the same day, and Roosevelt continued his journey back to the United States aboard the destroyer USS Cummings (DD-365)
. Admirable then resumed escort duty and continued that work into March 1945.

On 14 March 1945, Admirable's commanding officer was designated officer in tactical command of eight ships and all aircraft participating in a combined air-surface attack on a fictitious submarine in Kuluk Bay. The minesweeper then returned to her escort duties.

Selected for transfer to the

Rear Admiral Boris Dmitrievich Popov
, the Soviet commanding officer at Cold Bay under Project Hula, inspected Admirable on 30 May 1945 and accepted her for transfer to the Soviet Union. On 18 June 1945, a Soviet crew reported on board to train for one month in gunnery, engineering, and minesweeping procedures.

Soviet Navy, 1945-1958

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, Admirable was

Soviet Far East.[4]

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,

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 because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery.[5]
The Soviet Union never returned Admirable to the United States, although the U.S. Navy reclassified her as a "fleet minesweeper" (MSF) and redesignated her MSF-136 on 7 February 1955.

Disposal

T-331 was stricken in 1958[2] and apparently was sold for scrap in the Soviet Union. Unaware of this, the U.S. Navy retained Admirable on its Naval Vessel Register until finally striking her name on 1 January 1983.

References

  1. ^
    large infantry landing craft (LCI(L)s) and information on p. 27 about the transfer of USS Coronado (PF-38)
    , which Russell says typified the transfer process – indicating that Admirable's U.S. Navy decommissioning, transfer, and Soviet Navy commissioning all occurred simultaneously on 19 July 1945.
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-945274-35-1, p. 39, reports that the ship's Soviet name was T-331 and states that T-331 was stricken in 1958. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994. Russell, p. 40., also states that T-521 – a Soviet name previously attributed to Admirable but now identified as belonging to the former USS YMS-59
    , was stricken in 1956, ruling out this misidentification as a reason for confusion over the ship's fate, and it is unclear why NavSource asserts a 1954 scrapping date.
  3. ^
    auxiliary motor minesweeper, the former USS YMS-59
    , also transferred in 1945, had the Soviet name T-521. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994.
  4. ISBN 0-945274-35-1
    , p. 39.
  5. ISBN 0-945274-35-1
    , pp. 37–38, 39.

External links


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