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NavSource Online: Frigate Photo Archive

Moberly (PF 63)
ex-Scranton (PF 63)



Call sign:
Nan - Zebra - Zebra - Baker

ex-PG-171

Tacoma Class Patrol Frigate:

  • (MC Type T. S2-S2-AQ1) Originally authorized as Patrol Gunboat, PG-171
  • Reclassified as a Patrol Frigate, PF-63, 15 April 1943
  • Named Scranton 25 June 1943
  • Laid down 3 November 1943 under a Maritime Commission contract at Globe Shipbuilding Co., Superior, Wisconsin
  • Launched 26 January 1944
  • Renamed Moberly 28 June 1944
  • Commissioned USS Moberly (PF-63), 11 December 1944 at Houston, TX
  • Decommissioned 15 April 1946 and immediately commissioned into the Coast Guard
  • Decommissioned 12 August 1946
  • Struck from the Navy Register 23 April 1947 and transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal
  • Sold for scrap 27 October 1947 to the Franklin Shipwrecking Co. of Hillside, NJ
    Naval Vessel Register of 1 January 1949 lists sale date as November 1947.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 1,430 t.
  • Length, 303' 11"
  • Beam 37' 6"
  • Draft 13' 8"
  • Speed 20.3 kts.
  • Complement 214
  • Armament: Two 3"/50 dual purpose gun mounts (the after 3-inch gun was removed and a weather balloon hanger was added), two twin 40mm gun mounts , nine 20mm guns, one Hedgehog depth charge
    projector, eight Y-gun depth charge projectors and two depth charge tracks
  • Propulsion: Two 240psi 3-drum express boilers, two 5,500ihp verticle triple expansion J. Hendy Iron Works engines, two shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Scranton 55k Launching Historical Collections of the Great Lakes
    Scranton 96k "COAST GUARD DEPTH CHARGES SCORE IN LAST U-BOAT KILLING: Off Point Judith, Rhode Island, crewmen of the Coast Guard-manned frigate watch the surface boil as a pattern of depth charges scores the final kill in the long, uphill battle against Nazi U-boats in the Atlantic. Working in teamwork with three Navy vessels, the Coast Guard ship destroyed the submarine on Sunday, May 6, 1945. The Moberly operates as a unit of the Atlantic Fleet." Moberly has just fired a hedgehog pattern as the charges drop in a circular pattern ahead of the frigate.
    U.S. Coast Guard photo 4557    		 Mike Green
    Scranton 118k Moberly's hedgehog charges explode as they hit the ocean's floor.
    U.S. Navy photo NRL(MOD) 29402
    Moberly 202k A depth-charge pattern exploding around the ill-fated U-853 on the morning of 6 May 1945. Moberly was assisted by USS Atherton (DE-169) and USS Ericsson (DD-440).
    Photo from "United States Destroyer Operations in World War II", by Theodore Roscoe    		 Robert Hurst
    Scranton 137k Whaleboat retrieving wreckage from the oil slick left after U-853 was sunk off Block Island by Moberly and Atherton [DE 169], 6 May 1945.
    Naval Historical Center photo NH 48878    		 Mike Green
    Scranton 103k "Scratch another U-boat." Crewman paints an "authorized" U-boat silouette aboard Moberly for receiving credit for the destruction of the U-853.
    U.S. Coast Guard photo 2451
    Scranton 121k Off San Francisco, CA in early 1946.
    Naval Historical Center photo NH 79077
    Commanding Officers
    01LCDR Leslie Bliss Tollaksen, USCG - Awarded the Bronze Star (1945)11 December 1944 - 1945
    02LCDR Berthold Papanek, USCGR1945 - 10 May 1946
    03LT Carl McNulty, USN10 May 1946 - 12 August 1946
    Courtesy Wolfgang Hechler and Ron Reeves
    View the Moberly (PF-63)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
    Back To The Main Photo Index Back To the Patrol Craft/Gunboat/Submarine Chaser Ship Index Back to the Patrol Gunboat (PG) Photo Index Back to the Patrol Frigate (PF) Photo Index
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