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Submarine Chaser Photo Archive

Kewaunee (PC 1178)
ex-PCC-1178
ex-PC-1178



Call sign: November - Papa - Romeo - Whiskey

PC-461 Class Submarine Chaser: Laid down, 11 August 1943 at Leathem D. Smith Shipbuilding Co., Sturgeon Bay, Wisc.; Launched, 2 October 1943; Commissioned USS PC-1178, 6 January 1944 at New Orleans, LA.; Reclassified as a Control Submarine Chaser PCC-1178, 20 August 1945; Decommissioned, 4 September 1946 at Astoria, Oregon.; Laid up in the Pacific Reserve Fleet, Columbia River Group; Reclassified PC-1178, 27 October 1955; Named Kewaunee 15 February 1956; Struck from the Naval Register, 1 November 1959; Sold to the Port of Portland, Oregon, 30 June 1960. The Kewaunee was taken out of the Pacific Reserve Fleet in Astoria, Oregon in the spring of 1960. Towed to the Zidell Ship Dismantlers in Portland where the Fairbanks-Morse main engines were removed for overhaul. The hulk was then scrapped. The engines were given a major overhaul and upgrading by Fairbanks-Morse. They were installed on a dredge booster barge owned by the Port of Portland Dredging Commission. Using a dredge pump taken from an older (1925) dredge the design of the 30" booster pump unit included a belt transfer of power to the drive shaft giving a total power of 3,000 h.p. Working with the dredge "Clackamas" on the expansion of the Portland Airport and on the 2,000 acre Rivergate Industrial District. The present dredge can pump about 7,000 feet through floating pipes and with the new booster barge that distance can be doubled to 14,000 plus feet. The booster barge has been an important tool for the Port of Portland and symbolically, the PC-1178 is still "Steaming as Before...."

Specifications: Displacement 280 t.(lt) 450 t.(fl); Length 173' 8"; Beam 23'; Draft 10' 10"; Speed; 22k; Complement 65; Armament one single 3"/50 gun mount, one 40mm gun mount, five 20mm guns, two depth charge projectors, two depth charge tracks. two rocket launchers; Propulsion two Fairbanks-Morse 38D8 1/8 diesel engines (Serial No. 833297 & 833298), two shafts.


Click On Image
For Full Size Image
Size Image Description Source
PC-1178 25k Launching Ceremony
Great Lakes Institute Photo
Bob Daly/PC-1181
Kewaunee 25k - Bill Tormey
"Plank Owner" and crew member
January 1944 to December 1945
PCC-1178 52k Aground in the typhoon refuge at Unten Ko, Okinawa. c. October 1945.
Doug Roberts/PC-1178
via
Bob Daly/PC-1181

View the Kewaunee (PC-1178)
DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Web Site. The main archive for the DANFS Online Project.
Crew Contact And Reunion Information
PC-1178 E-mail crew member contact Bill Tormey.
U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation
Fleet Reserve Association

Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
Patrol Craft Sailors Association
"PC Patrol Craft of World War II"
by William J. Veigele, PhD, USNR, Ret. PC-793

Back To The Main Photo Index Back To the Patrol Craft/Gunboat/Submarine Chaser Ship Type Index Back to the Submarine Chaser (PC) Photo Index

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This page created by Gary P. Priolo and maintained by Joe Radigan
© 2005 Gary P. Priolo © 1996 - 2005 NavSource Naval History. All Rights Reserved.