USS Prudent, PG-96
Sensible.
Builder: Morton Engine and Dry Dock Co., Ltd., Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Length: 208'
Beam: 33'
Draft: 14' 7"
Displacement: 925 tons
Commissioned: 14 August 1943
Decommissioned: 11 October 1945
Disposition: Transferred to the Maritime Commission
Speed:
Maximum: 17 knots
Cruising: 12 knots
Range: 7,300 nautical miles at 12 knots
Complement: 87
Armament: 2 x 3"/50; 4 x 20mm; 3 x .30 caliber Browning machine guns; 2 depth charge tracks--20 depth charges per rack; 4 depth charge "K-gun" projectors; 1 x hedgehog added 1943(?)
History:
Prudent (PG--96), originally projected as HMS Privet (CN-- 314), was laid down by the Morton Engine and Dry Dock Co., Ltd., Montreal, Quebec, Canada on 14 August 1942. She was launched 4 December 1942 and was sponsored by Mrs. Vincent Godfrey. She was then delivered to the U.S. Navy on 14 August 1943 and was commissioned 16 August 1943 under the command of LT A. F. Pittman, USCG.
Following shakedown off Bermuda, Prudent steamed to New York to begin a series of east coast to Cuba escort runs. Sailing with her first convoy 7 December 1943, she completed her 11th run, at New York, 21 December 1944. During January and into February 1945 she patrolled the sea lanes off the New England coast, then, on 20 February, departed New York on her last escort assignment to Guantanamo Bay. Returning to New York 15 March, she resumed patrol duties and for the remainder of the war in Europe plied the waters off the northeast coast.
Ordered inactivated at the end of the war, Prudent sailed south, 11 June, to Norfolk, thence to Charleston where she decommissioned 11 October 1945. Struck from the Navy List 1 November 1945, she was transferred to the Maritime Commission for disposal 22 September 1947. In 1949 the ship was acquired by the Italian Navy and renamed Elbano. In 1951 she was converted to a hydrographic survey vessel and renamed a fourth time, Staffetta.
Sources:
The Coast Guard at War: Transports and Escorts, V, Volume I (Washington, DC: U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters, March 1, 1949), p. 107.
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
Cutter File, Historian's Office, Coast Guard Headquarters.