USS Groton, PF-29
A city in Connecticut.
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:
Groton (PF-29), formerly PG-137, was launched under Maritime Commission contract by Walter Butler Shipbuilding Co., Inc., Superior, Wisconsin on 14 September 1943 and was sponsored by Mrs. Percy Palmer. Groton commissioned 5 September 1944 with Lieutenant P. L. Chase, USCGR, in command.
After shakedown training off Bermuda, Groton reported for Atlantic duty 30 October 1944. She departed for her first duty station 2 November, arriving in Argentia, Newfoundland, 3 days later. The ship sailed 6 November for her weather station in the North Atlantic, sending important reports to allied weather stations and helping to guide wartime traffic safely to Europe. Groton remained on this duty, based at Argentia, until sailing for Boston 7 February 1945. She had but a short respite, and was back on her weather station 10 days later.
Groton performed weather picket duty in the Atlantic until 15 November 1945 when she returned to Boston for transfer to the Coast Guard. The ship simultaneously decommissioned and commissioned in the Coast Guard 13 March 1946. Serving the Coast Guard on loan, Groton again was assigned to weather duty off Argentia until decommissioning 25 September 1946 at New Orleans.
After being moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana, in November, Groton returned to New Orleans in January 1947. Turned over to the State Department for disposal, she was sold to the Government of Colombia 26 March 1947, where she servef as Almirante Padilla.
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. 164.