USS Grand Island, PF-14
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: 2 x 3"/50; 4 x 40mm (2x2); 9 x 20mm; 1 x Hedgehog, 8 x depth charge projectors; 2 x depth charge racks.
Her aft 3"/50 (others in the class had a total of 3 x 3"/50s) was removed and replaced with a weather balloon hanger.
History:
Grand Island, a frigate, was originally PG-122 and launched by Kaiser Cargo, Inc., Richmond, California on 19 February 1944. She was sponsored by Mrs. William Shackleton and was commissioned on 27 May 1944. Her first commanding officer was LCDR H. L. Morgan. After completing her shakedown cruise off the coast of southern California, Grand Island reported for duty with the 12th Naval District 12 September 1944. She subsequently performed weather station and plane guard duty out of San Francisco and participated in several training exercises with patrol forces on the West Coast. She also was engaged from time to time in antisubmarine escort duty. Grand Island departed San Francisco 26 March 1946, arrived Charleston, S.C., 13 April 1946 via the Canal Zone, and was turned over to the 6th Naval District for disposal.
She decommissioned 21 May 1946 and was stricken from the Navy Register 19 June. Declared not essential to the defense of the United States, the frigate was turned over to the State Department Foreign Liquidation Corporation and finally transferred to Cuba 16 June 1947, where she served as Maximo Gomez.
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. III, p. 134.
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.