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, Territory of Alaska, in anticipation of the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan – Palisade transiting the Panama Canal on 8 March 1945 and proceeded to Seattle, Washington, where she prepared for transfer. With preparations complete, she departed Seattle on 7 April 1945 bound for Kodiak, Alaska, then proceeded from Kodiak to Cold Bay, where she begin familiarization training of her new Soviet crew.[3]
Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, Palisade was decommissioned on 22 May 1945[2] at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately.[2] Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately,[2] she was designated as a tralshik ("minesweeper") and renamed T-279 in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union,[3] where she soon entered service with the Soviet Pacific Ocean Fleet.
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. 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 – such as T-279 (ex-Palisade) – because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery.[5]
The Soviet Union reported that T-279 has been sunk off Kham Island, Korea, on 14 or 15 August 1945, by a naval mine previously laid by American aircraft to target Japanese ships. However, post-Cold War research has found that the ship survived the war and was stricken by the Soviet Navy in 1957.[4]
^ abcdefgThe Dictionary of American Naval Fighting ShipsPalisade article states that the U.S. Navy decommissioned Palisade on 21 May 1945 and transferred her to the Soviet Navy, and hazegray.org Palisade repeats this, while NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive Palisade (AM 270) says that she was decommissioned on 21 May 1946 (obviously a typographical error for "21 May 1945") and transferred on 22 May 1945. 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, which includes access to Soviet-era records unavailable during the Cold War, reports that the transfer date was 22 May 1945. 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 Palisade's U.S. Navy decommissioning, transfer, and Soviet Navy commissioning all occurred simultaneously in a single ceremony on 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.
^ abcRussell, 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.
United States
Soviet Union
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
United States Navy
Soviet Navy
