Edsall DE-129

Edsall II

(DE-129: dp. 1,200; 1. 306'; b. 36'7", dr. 8'7", s. 21 k.;
cpl. 186; a. 3 3", 3 21" tt., 8 dcp., 1 dcp.(hh.), 2 dct.; cl.
Edsall)

The second Edsall (DE-129) was launched 1 November 1942 by Consolidated Steel Corp., Orange, Tex.; sponsored by Mrs. Bessie Edsall Bracey (see DD-219)
and commissioned 10 April 1943, Lieutenant Commander E. C. Woodward in command.

Edsall was schoolship at Norfolk, 20 June to 6 August 1943, for precommissioning crews of escort vessels then at Miami with the Submarine Chaser Training Center. In March 1944 she joined a tanker convoy at Galveston, assigned to Escort Division 69, whose flagship she became 24 March. Edsall continued escort duty from the Gulf to New York and Norfolk and with one convoy to Argentia. In May she sailed to Bermuda for antisubmarine warfare tests using a captured Italian submarine.

Between 1 July 1944 and 3 June 1945 she ranged Atlantic sealanes guarding seven convoys carrying the very lifeblood to the Mediterranean and Britain. While escorting the sixth convoy en route to New York from Liverpool on 10 April 1945, Edsall along with other escorts were quick to come to the assistance of two tankers in the convoy who had collided. Edsall searched for survivors and helped extinguish fires which broke out.

Edsall sailed for the Pacific 24 June 1945 but the war ended while she was training at Pearl Harbor, and she returned East. She was placed out of commission in reserve at Green Cove Springs, Fla., 11 June 1946.