USS Woonsocket (PF-32)

Career (USA)
Name: USS Woonsocket
Builder: Walter Butler Shipbuilding Company, Superior, Wisconsin
Laid down: 12 August 1943
Launched: 27 September 1943
Commissioned: 1 September 1944
Decommissioned: 16 March 1946
Struck: 14 May 1947
Fate: Transferred to the US Coast Guard, 16 March 1946
Career (USCG)
Name: USCGC Woonsocket
Commissioned: 16 March 1946
Decommissioned: 18 September 1946
Fate: Sold to Peru, 1948
Career (Peru)
Name: BAP Teniente Gálvez (F-1)
Acquired: 1948
Decommissioned: 1961
Renamed: Gálvez
Reclassified: FE-1
Fate: Broken up
General characteristics
Class and type:Tacoma-class frigate
Displacement:1,264 long tons (1,284 t)
Length:303 ft 11 in (92.63 m)
Beam:37 ft 6 in (11.43 m)
Draft:13 ft 8 in (4.17 m)
Propulsion:2 × 5,500 shp (4,101 kW) turbines
3 boilers
2 shafts
Speed:20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement:190
Armament:• 3 × 3"/50 caliber guns (3×1)
• 4 × 40 mm guns (2×2)
• 9 × 20 mm guns (9×1)
• 1 × Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar
• 8 × Y-gun depth charge projectors
• 2 × depth charge tracks

USS Woonsocket (PF-32), a Tacoma-class frigate, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for Woonsocket, Rhode Island.

The first Woonsocket (PF-32), originally classified as PG-140 and re-designated PF-32 on 25 June 1943, was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1443) on 12 August 1943 at the Walter Butler Shipbuilding Company in Superior, Wisconsin; launched on 27 September 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Ernest E. Dupre, wife of the mayor of Woonsocket; ferried to the Boston Navy Yard for completion; accepted by the Navy on 27 July 1944; and commissioned with a Coast Guard crew on 1 September 1944, with Commander William J. Conley, USCG, in command.

Service history

Following shakedown off Bermuda, Woonsocket returned to Boston for conversion to a weather ship before proceeding to Newfoundland, arriving at NS Argentia on 30 October. She performed meteorological charting duties off Newfoundland through the end of World War II and into the early months of 1946. She was decommissioned by the Navy on 16 March 1946 and recommissioned simultaneously by the Coast Guard on a loan basis. Woonsocket served with the Coast Guard until her final decommissioning on 18 September 1946 at New Orleans, Louisiana

Struck from the Navy list on 14 May 1947, the frigate was subsequently transferred to the Government of Peru. She served the Peruvian Navy first as Teniente Galvez (F 1) and later simply as Galvez. Reclassified FE-1, she was decommissioned in 1961, and later broken up.

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

External links