Adopt reached Adak in the Aleutian Islands on 29 June 1944. She was subsequently based there at Naval Operating Base Kuluk Bay. During her service in Alaskan waters, Adopt carried out tactical and gunnery drills, held minesweeping exercises, and provided convoy escort services.
Selected for transfer to the Soviet NavyinProject Hula – a secret program for the transfer of U.S. Navy ships to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay, Alaska, in anticipation of the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan – Adopt steamed into the anchorage at Cold Harbor in June 1945 and began training her new Soviet crew.
Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, Adopt was decommissioned on 19 July 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately. Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, she was designated as a tralshik ("minesweeper") and renamed T-332[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.[3]
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 NavyJames 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. Deteroriating 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 others by mutual agreement between the two countries were destroyed off the Soviet coast under the observation of American naval authorities.[4]
Although she was never returned to the United States, the U.S. Navy reclassified the ship as a "fleet minesweeper" (MSF) and redesignated her MSF-137 on 7 February 1955. T-332 was stricken by the Soviet Navy in 1960 and presumably sold for scrap.[3]
^ abThe Dictionary of American Naval Fighting ShipsAdopt article states that the former Adopt was named T-552 in Soviet service and cites the U.S. Naval Vessel Register as of 1 January 1958 as recording that T-552 hed been destroyed by agreement with the United States, and hazegray.org Adopt repeat this, while NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive Adopt (MSF 137) ex-AM-137 ex-AMc-114 states that the destruction of T-552 took place later in 1958. However, 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, ISBN0-945274-35-1, p. 39, reports that the ship's Soviet name was T-332 and states that T-332 was stricken 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.
^ abThe Dictionary of American Naval Fighting ShipsAdopt article states that Adopt was named T-552 in Soviet service, and NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive Adopt (MSF 137) ex-AM-137 ex-AMc-114 and hazegray.org Adopt repeat this, 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, ISBN0-945274-35-1, p. 39, which includes access to Soviet-era records unavailable during the Cold War, finds that the ship's Soviet name was T-332. 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. It is unclear what, if any, former U.S. Navy ship was T-552.
^ abRussell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, p. 39.
^Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, pp. 37-38, 39.