USS Shreveport, PF-23

A city in Louisiana.

Builder:  Walter Butler Shipbuilding Company, Superior, Wisconsin

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; 2 x 40mm (2x2); 9 x 20mm; 1 x Hedgehog, 8 x depth charge projectors; 2 x depth charge racks.  For those frigates fitted out for weather patrol duty, the after 3-inch gun was removed and a weather balloon hanger was added aft.

History:

The first Shreveport (PG-131) was laid down under Maritime Commission contract

 (MC hull 1434) on 8 March 1943 by Walter Butler Shipbuilders, Inc., Superior, Wisc. ; reclassified PF-23 on 15 April 1943; launched on 15 July 1943 ; sponsored by Miss Nell Querbes ; and commissioned on 24 April at Algiers, La., Comdr. H.A. Morrison, USCG, in command.

Following shakedown off Bermuda, Shreveport arrived at Boston on 9 November 1944. Conversion to a weather patrol ship followed; and, on 2 March 1945, she departed Boston and headed north to assume weather reporting and aircraft lifeguard duties in the North Atlantic.

Operating on stations between Newfoundland and Iceland, she completed her North Atlantic service in the fall and moved south, to Recife, Brazil, whence she conducted similar patrols from December 1945 until March 1946. She sailed for the United States on 8 March; was transferred to the operational control of the Coast Guard while en route; arrived at Boston on the 23d; then, steamed to Charleston for inactivation.

Shreveport was decommissioned on 9 May 1946; struck from the Navy list on 10 June; and sold for scrapping to the Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Chester, Pa., in September 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. VI, p. 490.