Vandalia IV PC-1175

Vandalia IV

(PC-1175: dp. 280; 1. 173'8"; b. 23'0"; dr. 10'10"; s. 20.2 k. (tl.); cpl. 65; a. 1 3", 1 40mm., 1 dcp. (Mouse trap), 2 dct.; cl. PC-161)

PC-1175 was laid down on 8 June 1943 at Sturgeon Bay, Wis., by the Leathem D. Smith Shipbuilding Co.; launched on 7 August 1943, sponsored by Miss Joan Burgess, and commissioned on 1 December 1943 at New Orleans, Lt. Peter J. Brennan, USNR, in command.

The submarine chaser soon moved to Miami, Fla., for operational training and then to Kest West for shakedown. On 23 January 1944, she embarked upon her first mission, escorting a convoy on the Key West-to-Galveston leg of its voyage. For the next four months, she served under the operational control of the Commander, Gulf Sea Frontier. Her duties consisted of escort missions for coastwise convoys in the Gulf of Mexico and frequently involved runs from gulf coast ports to the Canal Zone.

On 28 May, the submarine chaser departed Key West to escort the French submarine Le Centaure to New York. After arriving there on 1 June, she changed operational control from the Gulf Sea Frontier to the Eastern Sea Frontier. Though her theater of operations changed, PC-1175's duties remained the same—escorting coastal convoys and conducting antisubmarine patrols. When not engaged in her usual round-trip escort missions between New York and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, PC-1175 conducted antisubmarine warfare (ASW) training-most frequently in Long Island Sound but occasionally out of Guantanamo Bay-or made offensive ASW patrols in PC units built around a gunboat or a frigate.

Late in the spring of 1945, the ship received orders to duty with the Pacific Fleet Service Force. Departing New York on 8 June, the submarine chaser transited the Panama Canal at mid-month and arrived in San Diego on the 27th. Four days later, on 1 July, she departed San Diego for duty in the Central Pacific. After a 10-day stop at Pearl Harbor from 9 to 19 July, she resumed her voyage and arrived in Eniwetok lagoon on the 29th. After a week at Eniwetok, PC-1175 got underway for the Marianas on 5 August. Three days later, she arrived at Saipan where she remained for another three days before returning to sea, bound for the Voleano Islands. She made Iwo Jima on 16 August the day after the cessation of hostilities in the Pacific. She patrolled the waters around Iwo Jima for four days and then headed back toward the Marianas on the 20th. The subchaser reached Saipan on 23 August and took up patrol duty once again, this time in the waters around that island and Tinian. On 6 September, four days after the formal Japanese surrender ceremony in Toyko Bay, PC-1175 departed Saipan, bound for Okinawa. She made a brief stop at Iwo Jima on 8 September and arrived off Hagushi beach on 12 September.

The submarine chaser spent most of the first year of peace patrolling the Central Pacific. She visited the Voleano and Bonin Islands, the Marianas, and the Carolines. On 25 May 1946, the submarine chaser stood out of Guam on the first leg of her voyage home. However, engine failure interrupted that voyage on 28 May and PC-1175 had to lay to until the next day when Sylvania (AKA-44) took her in tow. The two ships entered the lagoon at Eniwetok on the last day of May and PC-1175 began repairs to her engines immediately. Those repairs were completed by 4 June, and she resumed her homeward-bound voyage on that same day The warship made a five-day stopover at Pearl Harbor between 11 and 16 June and then continued on to the west coast. She arrived at Astoria, Oreg., on 23 June and, four days later, moved to Portland for additional yard work at the Commercial Iron Works. She completed those repairs on 10 August and moved, under tow, back to Astoria. On 16 August 1946, PC-1175 was placed out of commission at Astoria and was berthed with the Columbia River Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet. She remained there for the next 11 years. On 15 February 1956, she was named Vandalia, and, in July 1957, she was transferred, on a loan basis, to the Taiwan Navy. She served Taiwan as Han Kiang (PC-124). During that service, probably sometime late in 1968 or early in 1969, she ran aground and was severely damaged. Her name was struck from the Navy list on 15 June 1969, and her wreck was sold to the Taiwan Government for scrapping.