USS Ogden (PF-39), a , originally classified as PG-137, was the first ship of the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 to be named for Ogden, Utah

Ogden, Utah

Ogden is a city in Weber County, Utah, United States. Ogden serves as the county seat of Weber County. The population was 82,825 according to the 2010 Census. The city served as a major railway hub through much of its history, and still handles a great deal of freight rail traffic which makes it a...

.

The first Ogden (PF-39) was laid down at the Consolidated Steel Corporation

Consolidated Steel Corporation

Consolidated Steel Corporation was an American steel and shipbuilding business. Consolidated built ships during World War II in two locations: Wilmington, California and Orange, Texas...

 shipyard in Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...

, on 21 May 1943; launched on 23 June 1943, sponsored by Miss Margaret S. Shelton; and commissioned at San Diego, California

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

, on 20 December 1943, with Lieutenant

Lieutenant

A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...

 K. C. Tharp, USNR, in command.

World War II, 1944-1945

After shakedown

Shakedown (testing)

A shakedown is a period of testing or a trial journey undergone by a ship, aircraft or other craft and its crew before being declared operational. Statistically, a proportion of the components will fail after a relatively short period of use, and those that survive this period can be expected to...

 out of San Diego, Ogden sailed from San Pedro, California, on 9 March 1944 escorting a convoy

Convoy

A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support, though it may also be used in a non-military sense, for example when driving through remote areas.-Age of Sail:Naval...

 via Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

 to Milne Bay, New Guinea, which she reached on 2 April 1944. During this time, she sailed in company with her sister ship and escorted the merchant tanker SS Fort Erie to Espiritu Santo

Espiritu Santo

Espiritu Santo is the largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, with an area of . It belongs to the archipelago of the New Hebrides in the Pacific region of Melanesia. It is in the Sanma Province of Vanuatu....

 from 23 to 29 March. Through July she took part in the operations leap-frogging westward in New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

, escorting landing ships and merchant vessel

Merchant vessel

A merchant vessel is a ship that transports cargo or passengers. The closely related term commercial vessel is defined by the United States Coast Guard as any vessel engaged in commercial trade or that carries passengers for hire...

s, conducting anti-submarine patrol

Patrol

A patrol is commonly a group of personnel, such as police officers or soldiers, that are assigned to monitor a specific geographic area.- Military :...

s, and serving as harbor entrance control ship at Humboldt Bay

Teluk Yos Sudarso

Yos Sudarso Bay also known earlier as Humboldt Bay is a small bay in Indonesia. It is on the north coast of New Guinea, about 50 kilometers west of the border between Indonesia's province of Papua and the country of Papua New Guinea...

.

Following repairs and training

Training

The term training refers to the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and competencies as a result of the teaching of vocational or practical skills and knowledge that relate to specific useful competencies. It forms the core of apprenticeships and provides the backbone of content at institutes of...

 at Brisbane, Australia, in August and September, the patrol frigate supported the buildup of men and shipping for the forthcoming return to the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

, twice escorting convoys from Manus

Manus Island

Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest island of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth largest island in Papua New Guinea with an area of 2,100 km², measuring around 100 km × 30 km. According to the 2000 census, Manus Island had a...

 in the Admiralties to New Guinea staging bases. She herself arrived at Leyte

Leyte Island

Leyte is an island in the Visayas group of the Philippines.The island measures about 180 km north-south and about 65 km at its widest point. In the north it nearly joins Samar, separated by the San Juanico Strait, which becomes as narrow as 2 km in some places...

 on 2 November, bringing up a convoy which included a Navy tanker

Tanker (ship)

A tanker is a ship designed to transport liquids in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, and the liquefied natural gas carrier.-Background:...

, an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n merchantman, and ten tug

Tug

Tuğ is a village in the Khojavend Rayon of Azerbaijan....

s pulling a variety of tows. When enemy planes attacked her convoy that night, one bomb

Bomb

A bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...

 missed her by only 50 yards (45.7 m).

She returned to New Guinea twice to bring reinforcement convoys to Leyte, and on 12 November, shot down three Japanese suicide planes

Kamikaze

The were suicide attacks by military aviators from the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, designed to destroy as many warships as possible....

 attacking merchant shipping off Leyte. Her gunners scored again off New Guinea on 29 November, assisting in the destruction of two of the torpedo planes which attacked her Leyte-bound convoy.

Ogden left Humboldt Bay on 14 December, bound for Manus, Bora Bora

Bora Bora

The commune of Bora-Bora is made up of the island of Bora Bora proper with its surrounding islets emerging from the coral reef, 29.3 km² in total, and of the atoll of Tupai , located north of Bora Bora...

, the Panama Canal

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...

, Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...

, and Boston, Massachusetts, where she arrived on 24 January 1945. After repairs and training in Casco Bay, Maine, Ogden was westward bound once more, via the Panama Canal to Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

, where she completed repairs. On 27 June Ogden arrived in Cold Bay, Alaska

Cold Bay, Alaska

Cold Bay is a city in Aleutians East Borough, Alaska, United States.Cold Bay is one of the main commercial centers of the Alaska Peninsula, and is home to Cold Bay Airport.-History:...

, where she trained Russian sailors.

Soviet Navy, 1945–1949

She decommissioned on 12 July 1945 and was transferred to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 under lend-lease

Lend-Lease

Lend-Lease was the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, Free France, and other Allied nations with materiel between 1941 and 1945. It was signed into law on March 11, 1941, a year and a half after the outbreak of war in Europe in...

. In the Soviet Navy

Soviet Navy

The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...

 she served as EK-7. The ship was returned to the United States at Yokosuka, Japan, on 15 October 1949.

Japanese Navy, 1953–1977

Transferred to Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

on 14 January 1953, she served as Kusu (PF–281). The ship was reclassified as an Auxiliary Service Craft, YAS-50, on 31 March 1970; reclassified as an Auxiliary Stock Craft, YAC-22, on 31 March 1971; and decommissioned on 1 April 1976. She was returned to U.S. custody on 28 June 1977. Fate unknown.

External links

• hazegray.org: USS Ogden