USS Knoxville, PF-64
A city in Tennessee.
Builder: Leatham D. Smith Shipyard, Sturgeon Bay, 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:
PF-64 was launched 10 July 1943 by the Leatham D. Smith Shipyard, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, under a Maritime Commission contract. She was sponsored by Mrs. Cecelia Daniel. She was delivered in New Orleans, Louisiana on 29 December 1943 and after extensive engine and hull alterations was commissioned 29 April 1944 under the command of LCDR G. R. Reynolds, USCG.
After shakedown out of Bermuda, Knoxville arrived Norfolk 16 November, and served briefly as a training ship. Clearing Norfolk 11 December, she escorted convoy UGS-63 to North Africa, arriving Oran 28 December. On her return voyage the patrol escort searched for enemy U-boats that plagued Allied shipping at the approaches to the Straits of Gibraltar and arrived Boston 20 January 1945. During the early months of 1945, Knoxville escorted convoys across the Atlantic and occasionally she was dispatched for ASW search operations. Following her final escort cruise to the Azores, the patrol frigate arrived Philadelphia 1 June for conversion to a weather ship.
Knoxville cleared Philadelphia 17 June and two weeks later took position on airsea rescue and weather stations off Newfoundland. For 10 months she operated from her post, flashing news of weather conditions to assist flight operations and ship movements in the western Atlantic. Upon completion of her tour Knoxville returned to Charleston, South Carolina where she was decommissioned on 17 June 1946. She was then sold to the Dominican Republic on 22 September 1947. She was renamed the Capitan General Santana (F-104).
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. III, p. 670.