USS Charlotte, PF-60

A city in North Carolina.

Builder:  Globe Shipbuilding Co., 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 third warship named Charlotte (PF--60) was launched 30 October 1943 by Globe Shipbuilding Co., Superior, Wisconsin, under a Maritime Commission contract.  She was sponsored by Mrs. R. Billings and was placed in service 19 July 1944.  Charlotte was commissioned 9 October 1944, under the command of CDR Ralph D. Dean, USCG.  She then reported for duty with the Atlantic Fleet.

Charlotte cleared Boston 8 January 1945 to take up what was to be her primary mission through her naval service, sailing to Argentia, Newfoundland, where she took up weather station duty.  Flashing news of weather conditions from her post at sea, she helped make it possible for specialists to prepare weather predictions.  This information not only affected flight operations and ship movements in the western Atlantic, where she patrolled, but, since weather in general moves to the eastward, aided in predicting European conditions.  Each patrol lasted approximately 20 days.

Between 21 and 26 March 1945, Charlotte aided Surprise (PG-63) and Tenacity (PG-71), rendezvousing at sea with the ice--damaged gunboats and towing them to Argentia.  Later, she towed Tenacity to Boston, but by 5 April was back on her weather station.  Similar duty in the North Atlantic, during which she kept alert for the possibility of rescuing downed aviators, continued until 17 January 1946, when she sailed from Boston for a weather station off Bermuda.

Charlotte arrived at Norfolk, Va., 15 March 1946, and was decommissioned there 16 April 1946.  She was sold 13 May 1947.

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. II, p. 83.