A city in Wyoming.
Builder: Kaiser Cargo, Inc., Richmond, CA
Length: 303' 11"
Beam: 37' 6"
Draft: 12' 8" fl
Displacement: 2,230 tons
Propulsion: 2-shaft VTE, 3 boilers
Range: 9,500 nm at 12 knots
Top speed: 20 knots
Complement: 190
Armament: 3 x 3"/50; 4 x 40mm (2x2); 9 x 20mm; 1 x Hedgehog, 8 x depth charge projectors; 2 x depth charge racks.
History:
Casper (PF-12) was launched 27 December 1943 by Kaiser Cargo Co., Richmond, California, under a Maritime Commission contract. She was sponsored by Mrs. E. J. Spaulding and commissioned 31 March 1944. LCDR F.J. Scheiber, USCG, took command and his new warship reported to the Western Sea Frontier.
Casper sailed from San Francisco 30 September 1944 for a weather patrol out of Seattle returning to San Francisco 6 November. From this base, she operated as plane guard, and on weather patrol, performing these vital functions between the mainland and Pearl Harbor. During the organizing conference of the United Nations at San Francisco, which began 25 April 1945, Casper made two security patrols off the Farallon Islands.
Casper cleared San Francisco 4 April 1946 for Charleston, S.C., where she was decommissioned 16 May 1946. The patrol escort was sold 20 May 1947.
Sources:
The Coast Guard At War, Transports and Escorts, Vol. V, No. 1, p. 142.
Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992, pp. 148-149.
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol. II, p. 47.
Richard A. Russell. Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan. [The U.S. Navy in the Modern World Series, No. 4.] Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center/U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997, pp. 39-40.