USS Adopt

USS Adopt (AMc-114/AM-137/MSF-137) was an Admirable-class minesweeper built for the United States Navy during World War II and in commission from 1943 to 1945. In 1945, she was transferred to the Soviet Navy under Lend-Lease as T-332.

History
United States
Name: USS Adopt (AMc-114)
Builder: Tampa Shipbuilding Company, Tampa, Florida
Reclassified: AM-137, 21 February 1942
Laid down: 8 April 1942
Launched: 18 October 1942
Sponsored by: Mrs. Elizabeth H. Hastings
Commissioned: 31 May 1943
Decommissioned: 19 July 1945
Fate: Transferred to Soviet Navy, 19 July 1945
Reclassified: MSF-137, 7 February 1955
Stricken: 1 January 1958 (possibly a misidentification of T-552 for T-332)[1]
History
Soviet Union
Name: T-332[2]
Acquired: 19 July 1945
Commissioned: 19 July 1945
Stricken: 1960[1]
General characteristics
Class and type: Admirable-class minesweeper
Displacement: 650 tons
Length: 184 ft 6 in (56.24 m)
Beam: 33 ft (10 m)
Draft: 9 ft 9 in (2.97 m)
Propulsion:
Speed: 15 knots (27.8 km/h)
Complement: 104
Armament:
Service record
Part of:

Construction and commissioning

Adopt was laid down on 8 April 1942 at Tampa, Florida, by the Tampa Shipbuilding Company, Inc. She was launched on 18 October 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Elizabeth H. Hastings, and commissioned on 31 May 1943 with Lieutenant Frank Robert Edrington in command.

Service history

U.S. Navy, World War II, 1943-1945

After conducting shakedown training off Key West, Florida, Adopt proceeded to Norfolk Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, for post-shakedown repairs and alterations and then began a series of minesweeping tests and exercises at Little Creek, Virginia, and Solomons Island, Maryland. These operations occupied her into early September 1943, when she departed for the United States West Coast. Adopt made a brief stop at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before transiting the Panama Canal and joining the United States Pacific Fleet. She reached San Diego, California, on 25 September 1943.

Adopt operated at San Diego as an escort ship through 26 May 1944. That same month, she reported for duty to the Commander, Western Sea Frontier. She left the U.S. West Coast on 6 June 1944 and shaped a course for Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, and took part in a 10-day period of antisubmarine warfare exercises in the waters of the Hawaiian Islands under the auspices of Commander, Task Force 1. On 23 June 1944, she departed Hawaii in a convoy bound for the Territory of Alaska.

Adopt reached Adak in the Aleutian Islands on 29 June 1944. She was subsequently based there at Naval Operating Base Kuluk Bay. During her service in Alaskan waters, Adopt carried out tactical and gunnery drills, held minesweeping exercises, and provided convoy escort services.

Selected for transfer to the Soviet Navy in Project Hula – a secret program for the transfer of U.S. Navy ships to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay, Alaska, in anticipation of the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan – Adopt steamed into the anchorage at Cold Harbor in June 1945 and began training her new Soviet crew.

Soviet Navy, 1945-1954

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, Adopt was decommissioned on 19 July 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately. Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, she was designated as a tralshik ("minesweeper") and renamed T-332[2] in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she served in the Soviet Far East.[3]

Disposal

In February 1946, the United States began negotiations for the return of ships loaned to the Soviet Union for use during World War II, and on 8 May 1947, United States Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal informed the United States Department of State that the United States Department of the Navy wanted 480 of the 585 combatant ships it had transferred to the Soviet Union for World War II use returned. Deteroriating relations between the two countries as the Cold War broke out led to protracted negotiations over the ships, and by the mid-1950s the U.S. Navy found it too expensive to bring home ships that had become worthless to it anyway. Many ex-American ships were merely administratively "returned" to the United States and instead sold for scrap in the Soviet Union, while others by mutual agreement between the two countries were destroyed off the Soviet coast under the observation of American naval authorities.[4]

Although she was never returned to the United States, the U.S. Navy reclassified the ship as a "fleet minesweeper" (MSF) and redesignated her MSF-137 on 7 February 1955. T-332 was stricken by the Soviet Navy in 1960 and presumably sold for scrap.[3]

References
  1. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships Adopt article states that the former Adopt was named T-552 in Soviet service and cites the U.S. Naval Vessel Register as of 1 January 1958 as recording that T-552 hed been destroyed by agreement with the United States, and hazegray.org Adopt repeat this, while NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive Adopt (MSF 137) ex-AM-137 ex-AMc-114 states that the destruction of T-552 took place later in 1958. However, more recent research in Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, p. 39, reports that the ship's Soviet name was T-332 and states that T-332 was stricken in 1960. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994.
  2. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships Adopt article states that Adopt was named T-552 in Soviet service, and NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive Adopt (MSF 137) ex-AM-137 ex-AMc-114 and hazegray.org Adopt repeat this, but more recent research in Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, p. 39, which includes access to Soviet-era records unavailable during the Cold War, finds that the ship's Soviet name was T-332. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994. It is unclear what, if any, former U.S. Navy ship was T-552.
  3. Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, p. 39.
  4. Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, pp. 37-38, 39.


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