USS Evansville, PF-70
A city in Indiana.
Builder: Leathem D. Smith Shipbuilding Co., Sturgeon Bay, 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; 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 second Evansville (PF-70) was launched 27 November 1943 by Leathem D. Smith Shipbuilding Co., Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin and was sponsored by Mrs. Don Davis, daughter of the Mayor of Evansville, Indiana. She was then towed down the Mississippi River to New Orleans were she was fitted out and commissioned 4 December 1944 under the command of LCDR Gerald T. A. Applegate, USCG.
Evansville sailed down the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico and after calling at Mobile, Alabama. reached Charleston, South Carolina on 31 December. Through the next 6 months, she had escort duty along the east coast and to Bermuda, patrolled off New York, and served briefly as a weather station ship. She departed New York City 9 July 1945 bound for San Diego, Seattle, and Cold Bay, where she was decommissioned 9 September 1945 and then transferred to the Soviet Navy as the EK-30 under lend lease 4 September 1945.
Returned by Russia at Yokosuka, Japan, Evansville was re-commissioned 29 July 1950, and served on patrol out of Yokosuka and in Korean waters until decommissioned 28 February 1953. On 31 October 1953 she was transferred under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program to Japan, in whose Maritime Self-Defense Force she served as Keyaki.
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. 376.