USS Newport, PF-27
A city and county in Rhode Island, important as a naval base since the American Revolution.
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 second Newport (PF-27) was laid down by Walter Butler Shipbuilding Co., Superior, Wis., 5 June 1943. She was launched 15 August 1943 and sponsored by Mrs, Nicholas Brown. Newport was commissioned at New Orleans 8 September 1944 with LCDR O. I. Holt, USCG, in command.
After Bermuda shakedown, Newport sailed from New York to Guantanamo Bay on escort duty, returning 24 February 1945 to Tompkinsville, N. Y., her homeport for exercises and patrol off the Atlantic coast until 9 July.
Sailing via the Panama Canal and Seattle, Newport arrived at Cold Bay, Alaska to decommission. She was loaned to Soviet Russia under Lend-Lease who commissioned her as EK-28 on 9 September 1945. She served in the Soviet Navy until returned to United States custody at Yokosuka, Japan, 14 November 1949.
Recommissioned 27 July 1950, Newport patrolled off Inchon, Korea 15 to 26 September, screening during the landings. She was then converted for weather station service, and so served in the northwest Pacific until November 1951, when she took up varied duty off Korea, screening replenishment groups, patrolling, and firing shore bombardment at Wonsan 29 December. She next operated in the Philippines until decommissioning at Yokosuka 30 April 1952.
Loaned to Japan 1 October 1953, she was commissioned as Kaede (PF-13). Reclassified PF-293 on 1 September 1957, she was struck from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register 1 December 1961, and was transferred to the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force outright on 28 August 1962. Kaede was reclassified as a non-operational training ship on 31 March 1966.
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. V, pp. 77-78.
Russell, Richard A. Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan. No. 4. The U.S. Navy in the Modern World Series. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1997.