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Submarine Chaser Photo Archive

PC-1598



PC-1598 call sign:
Nan - Able - Easy - Love

ex-Excel (AM 94)

Adroit Class Fleet Minesweeper:

  • The first Excel was laid down 19 December 1941 by the Jakobson Shipyard, Inc., Oyster Bay, Long Island, NY
  • Launched 10 May 1942
  • Commissioned USS Excel (AM 94), 10 December 1942
  • Reclassified as a Submarine Chaser, PC-1598, 1 June 1944
  • Decommissioned 22 January 1946 at San Francisco, CA
  • Struck from the Naval Register 25 February 1946
  • Transferred to the War Shipping Administration 11 June 1947 and sold to the Tidewater/Shaver Barge Lines of Suisun Bay, CA
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 295 t.
  • Length 173' 8"
  • Beam 23'
  • Draft 6' 6"
  • Speed 16 kts.
  • Complement 65
  • Armament: One 3"/50 dual purpose gun mount, one 40mm mount, five 20mm mounts, two depth charge tracks and two depth charge projectors
  • Propulsion: Two 900hp Cooper Bessemer GNB8 diesel engines (Serial No. 1985 and 1986), Farrel-Birmingham single reduction gear, two shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    USS Excel (AM 98)
    Excel 228k . Original photo: Bob Daly/PC-1181
    Replacement photo: Ron Titus
    USS PC-1598
    PC-1598 97k With her new hull number already applied, PC-1598 displays the armament fitted to the Pacific units by Norfolk Navy Yard. Forward of the 3-inch gun are two 12-round Mk 22 Mousetrap antisubmarine rocket launchers, and two Mk 6 depth-charge mortars are mounted just abaft the newly installed 40-mm Mk 3 antiaircraft gun. The original Mk 7 depth-charge racks have been replaced with Mk 9s, with racks for reload charges fitted between them. The five 20-mm antiaircraft mounts are fitted two on the main deck aft, two abreast the foremast, and one atop the pilothouse. Note the crow's nest lookout position still fitted on the mast
    U.S. Navy photo from the August 2002 edition of Naval History magazine    		 Joe Radigan
    PC-1598 107k . Bob Daly/PC-1181
    Commanding Officers
    01LCDR Marcus Lucius Whitford, USNR10 December 1942
    02LT Chandler Hovey, Jr., USNR21 March 1943
    03LT John Ulysses Nixon, USNR13 September 1943
    04LT Warwick Peter Scott, USNR17 May 1944
    05LT M. M. Hambrick, USNR1945
    06LT Ralph Nelson Turner, Jr., USNR28 October 1945 - 22 January 1946
    Courtesy of Wolfgang Hechler and Ron Reeves
    View the Excel (AM 94)
    DANFS history entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway website
    Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
    Patrol Craft Sailors Association
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