USS Indicative (AM-250)

History
United States
Name: USS Indicative (AM-250)
Builder: Savannah Machine and Foundry Company, Savannah, Georgia
Laid down: 29 September 1943
Launched: 12 December 1943
Sponsored by: Mrs. E. L. Smith
Commissioned: 26 June 1944
Decommissioned: 22 May 1945[1]
Fate: Transferred to Soviet Navy, 22 May 1945[1]
History
Soviet Union
Name: T-273[2]
Acquired: 22 May 1945[1]
Commissioned: 22 May 1945[1]
Refit: Converted to naval trawler, 1948
Renamed: Tsiklon, 1948
Fate: Scrapped 1960[3]
General characteristics
Class and type: Admirable-class minesweeper
Displacement: 650 tons
Length: 184 ft 6 in (56.24 m)
Beam: 33 ft (10 m)
Draft: 9 ft 9 in (2.97 m)
Propulsion:
Speed: 14.8 knots (27.4 km/h)
Complement: 104
Armament:
Service record
Part of:

USS Indicative (AM-250) was an Admirable-class minesweeper built for the United States Navy during World War II and in commission from 1944 to 1945. In 1945, she was transferred to the Soviet Union and served in the Soviet Navy as T-273. The Soviets converted her into a naval trawler in 1948 and renamed her Tsiklon.

Construction and commissioning

Indicative was laid down on 29 September 1943 at Savannah, Georgia by the Savannah Machine and Foundry Company, launched on 12 September 1943, sponsored by Mrs. E. L. Smith;, and commissioned on 26 June 1944 with Lieutenant E. A. Comee in command.

Service history

U.S. Navy, World War II, 1944-1945

Following shakedown and a training period at Little Creek, Virginia, Indicative departed on 19 August 1944 for antisubmarine exercises off Bermuda. She then took up regular duties as a convoy escort vessel between ports in the United States and Bermuda, protecting the convoys from German submarines operating in the western Atlantic Ocean.

Selected for transfer to the Soviet Navy in Project Hula – a secret program for the transfer of U.S. Navy ships to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay, Territory of Alaska, in anticipation of the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan – Indicative departed New York City on 5 February 1945 and steamed by way of the Panama Canal Zone and United States West Coast ports to Cold Bay, where she arrived 4 April 1945 and began training her new Soviet crew.

Soviet Navy, 1945-1960

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, Indicative was decommissioned on 22 May 1945[1] at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately.[1] Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately,[1] she was designated as a tralshik ("minesweeper") and renamed T-273[2] in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she served in the Soviet Far East.[4]

In February 1946, the United States began negotiations for the return of ships loaned to the Soviet Union for use during World War II, and on 8 May 1947, United States Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal informed the United States Department of State that the United States Department of the Navy wanted 480 of the 585 combatant ships it had transferred to the Soviet Union for World War II use returned. Deteriorating relations between the two countries as the Cold War broke out led to protracted negotiations over the ships, and by the mid-1950s the U.S. Navy found it too expensive to bring home ships that had become worthless to it anyway. Many ex-American ships were merely administratively "returned" to the United States and instead sold for scrap in the Soviet Union, while the U.S. Navy did not seriously pursue the return of others because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery.[5] The Soviet Union never returned Capable to the United States, and in 1948 converted her into a naval trawler and renamed her Tsiklon. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy reclassified her as a "fleet minesweeper," MSF-250 on 7 February 1955.

Disposal

T-237 was scrapped in 1960.[3] Unaware of her fate, the U.S. navy retained Indicative on its Naval Vessel Register until finally striking her name on 1 January 1983.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships Indicative article states that the U.S. Navy transferred Indicative to the Soviet Navy on 5 April 1945, and NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive Indicative (AM 250) and hazegray.org Indicative repeat this. However, the ship's 4 April 1945 arrival at Cold Bay precludes a 5 April 1945 transfer date, as it would have allowed no time for the training of her Soviet crew in Project Hula. More recent research in Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, p. 39, which includes access to Soviet-era records unavailable during the Cold War, reports that the transfer date was 22 May 1945. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994. According to Russell, Project Hula ships were decommissioned by the U.S. Navy simultaneously with their transfer to and commissioning by the Soviet Navy – see photo captions on p. 24 regarding the transfers of various large infantry landing craft (LCI(L)s) and information on p. 27 about the transfer of USS Coronado (PF-38), which Russell says typified the transfer process – indicating that Indicative's U.S. Navy decommissioning, transfer, and Soviet Navy commissioning all occurred simultaneously in a single ceremony on 22 May 1945.
  2. 1 2 NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive Indicative (AM 250) states that Indicative's Soviet name was T-279, while hazegray.org Indicative says that it was T-278, but more recent research in Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, pp. 39-40, which includes access to Soviet-era records unavailable during the Cold War, finds that Indicative's Soviet name was T-273, while it was USS Nucleus (AM-268) that was named T-278 and USS Palisade (AM-270) that was named T-279. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994.
  3. 1 2 The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships Indicative article states that ex-Indicative – not identified by a Soviet name – "was probably lost between 1948 and 1950", while NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive Indicative (Am 250) says that T-279 (ex-Indicative) struck a naval mine and sank off North Korea in May 1945 and hazegray.org Indicative repeats this., although identifying the lost ship as T-278. More recent research in Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, p. 39, reports that the ship's Soviet name was T-273 and states that T-273 was scrapped in 1960. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994. Russell, p. 39., states that T-278 was ex-USS Nucleus (AM-268) and T-279 was ex-USS Palisade (AM-270) and that both of these ships also were scrapped in 1960. The confusion over the identity of the three ships therefore does not explain the origin of the idea that one of them was lost in 1945. According to Russell, pp. 31, 39, 40, a single Project Hula ship, T-610 (ex-USS YMS-285) "sank" at an undisclosed location sometime in 1945 and five Project Hula large infantry landing craft (LCI(L)s) were sunk by Japanese coastal artillery during the landings on Shumshu on 18 August 1945, but none of this explains the assertion that ex-Indicative was sunk by a mine in May 1945.
  4. ↑ Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, p. 39.
  5. ↑ Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN 0-945274-35-1, pp. 37-38, 39.


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