USS Woonsocket, PF-32
A town in southeastern Rhode Island that in turn takes its name from an Indian word that meant "at the place of the mist."
Builder: Walter Butler Shipbuilders, Inc., Superior, WI
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. 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 Woonsocket (PF-32)--originally PG-140 and redesignated PF-32 on 25 June 1943--was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 1443) on 12 August 1943 at Superior, Wisc. by Walter Butler Shipbuilders, Inc. She was launched on 27 September 1943 and was sponsored by Mrs. Ernest E. Dupre, wife of the mayor of Woonsocket, RI. She was ferried to the Boston Navy Yard for completion and was accepted by the Navy on 27 July 1944. She was commissioned into the Navy with a Coast Guard crew on 1 September 1944 and placed under the command of CDR William J. Conley, USCG.
Following shakedown off Bermuda, Woonsocket returned to Boston for conversion to a weather ship before proceeding to Newfoundland. She arrived at Argentia on 30 October for 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.
Struck from the Navy list on 14 May 1947, the Tacoma-class frigate was subsequently transferred to the Government of Peru. She served the Peruvian Navy first as Teniente Galvez and later simply as Galvez into the 1980's.
Sources:
The Coast Guard At War, Transports and Escorts, Vol. V, No. 1.
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. VIII, p. 463.