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N7KTP > NAVNET 18.12.04 09:16l 53 Lines 3470 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 30338_N7FSP
Read: DG8DG GUEST
Subj: USS PCE-845
Path: DB0FHN<DB0RGB<DB0SL<DB0FSG<I4UKI<IK5CKL<IZ0AWG<VK6ISP<VE2RXY<ON0AR<
7M3TJZ<N7FSP
Sent: 041217/2343z @:N7FSP.#SEA.#WWA.WA.USA.NOAM West Seattle, WA. on 145.010
PCE 845 ran enemy shipping lanes in Philippines
By FRED MILES WATSON - Managing Editor – Northwest Navigator
Patrol Craft Escort 845 was built at Chicago by the Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing Co. Upon completion she was barged
to New Orleans where she was commissioned March 1, 1944, with Lt. Glenn W. Morrow, USNR, in command.
Displacing 903-tons, she was 185 feet in length and had a draft of nine feet, five inches. 99 Sailors were assigned to PCE
845. Top speed was 15 knots, and this PCE 842-class vessel was equipped with one, 3-inch gunmount and three single 40mm and fi
v
e single 20mm antiaircraft gun mounts. She also was outfitted with two depth charge tracks, four depth charge projectors and on
e hedgehog depth charge projector.
Following shakedown, PCE-845 departed Miami on April 18, bound for Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, British West Indies. The patro
l escort operated with Adm. Jonas I. Ingrams, 4th Fleet, escorting coastal convoys between Port-of-Spain and Brazilian ports su
c
h as Recife, Bahia, Belem and Rio de Janeiro until December.
Departing Trinidad on the 7th, PCE-845 shaped a course for the Florida keys and a stint of training operations before depa
rting Key West on Jan. 21, 1945, heading for the Pacific.
The escort vessel arrived at Hollandia, New Guinea, on March 2, where she was routed onward to the Philippines. Operating
out of Mangarin Bay, Mindoro, she conducted escort missions and antisubmarine patrols to the western and southwestern islands o
f
the Philippine Archipelago.
In July, she began patrolling Leyte Gulf and continued the mission until V-J Day in mid-August 1945. Departing San Pedro B
ay, Leyte, on Aug.15, PCE-845 escorted the kamikaze-damaged destroyer Hugh W. Hadley (DD-774) to Hawaii, arriving at Pearl Harb
o
r on Aug. 24. For the next two years, the escort vessel operated out of that base on air-sea rescue and
weather patrols as a unit of Service Squadron 7.
On Aug. 30, 1947, the small ship sailed for the mainland of the United States. Proceeding via San Diego and the Panama Can
al, PCE-845 arrived at Algiers, La., on Oct. 2, and was subsequently decommissioned at Galveston, Texas, on Dec. 22 and laid up
.
Reactivated three years later for service as a naval district training ship, she initially operated out of New Orleans,
attached to the 8th Naval District.
In this role, her mission occasionally took her to the Mexican port of Veracruz. Then, after proceeding up the Mississippi
River late in 1950, PCE-845 was recommissioned at Chicago on Dec. 11, for service on the Great Lakes for the 9th Naval Distric
t
..
For the next 14 years, the patrol craft made regular reserve training cruises on Lakes Superior and Michigan. On Feb. 15,
1956, she was named Worland.
She departed Chicago on April 6, 1964, bound for the eastern seaboard. En route, she called at Milwaukee, Detroit, and Que
bec before arriving at Philadelphia on April 28. Decommissioned on May 25, 1964, Worland was assigned to the Philadelphia Group
of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.
Struck from the Navy list on June 1,1964, Worland was subsequently acquired on Aug. 6, 1964 by the Cape Fear Technical Ins
titute of Wilmington, N.C., and renamed Advance II, commemorating the Confederate blockade runner Advance of Civil War days.
She serves as a training and research ship in the marine technology program of the Cape Fear Technical Institute.
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