USS Hingham, PF-30

A city in Massachusetts.

Builder:  Walter Butler Shipbuilding Company, Superior, Wisconsin

Length:  303' 11"

Beam:  37' 6"

Draft:  12' 8" fl

Displacement: 2,230 tons

Propulsion:  2-shaft VTE, 3 boilers

Range:  9,500 nm at 12 knots

Top speed:  20 knots

Complement:  190

Armament: 3 x 3"/50; 2 x 40mm (2x2); 9 x 20mm; 1 x Hedgehog, 8 x depth charge projectors; 2 x depth charge racks.  For those frigates fitted out for weather patrol duty, the after 3-inch gun was removed and a weather balloon hanger was added aft.

History:

Hingham (PF-30), originally designated PG-138, was launched under Maritime Commission contract by Walter Butler Shipbuilders, Inc. 27 August 1943 and was sponsored by Mrs. Katherine F. Harrington.  She was commissioned 3 November 1944 after outfitting at Plaquemine, Louisiana, under the command of LCDR W. K. Earle, USCG.

Following shakedown training out of Bermuda, Hingham finished conversion to a weather ship at Boston and after escorting a merchant ship from Argentia to Boston reported 3 January 1945 to the North Atlantic Weather Patrol.  The ship then took up the arduous duties of weather patrol in the North Atlantic during winter, performing the task of reporting so vital to convoying and warship movements alike.  She remained on station after the close of the war, returning to Boston 4 May 1946.  Hingham then sailed to Charleston, where she decommissioned 5 June 1946. 

The frigate was sold 15 August 1947 to Sun Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., Chester, Pa., and scrapped.

Sources:

The Coast Guard At War, Transports and Escorts, Vol. V, No. 1.

Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946.  London: Conway Maritime Press, 1992, pp. 148-149.

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol. III, p. 333.