From the “Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships,” 
(1968) Vol. 3, pp.612-613.


KEITH

DE-241
Displacement:  1,200 t.
Length:  306’
Beam:  36’7”
Draft:  8’7”
Speed:  21 k.
Complement:  186
Armament:  3 3”; 8 40mm; 10 20mm; 3 21” torpedo tubes;
	2 depth charge tracks;
	8 hedge charge projectors
Class:  EDSALL

	KEITH (DE-241), laid down as SCOTT and renamed KEITH 8 
December 1942, was launched 21 December 1942 by Brown Ship 
Building Co., Houston, Tex.; sponsored by Mrs. Ellis J. 
Keith, Sr., mother of Seaman Keith; and commissioned 19 July 
1943 at Houston, Tex., Lt. D. Cochran in command.

	After shakedown and training exercise out of Bermuda, 
KEITH sailed from Norfolk 14 September 1943 on the first of 
three voyages escorting convoys from East Coast ports to 
Gibraltar.

	After returning from convoy escort duty 22 February 
1944, KEITH underwent extensive refresher training and 
participated in antisubmarine warfare exercises before 
sailing on 15 March as part of escort carrier TRIPOLI’s 
(CVE-64) newly-formed hunter-killer group.  With this group 
she patrolled the Atlantic from Brazil to Newfoundland in 
quest of enemy submarines.

	In July, she joined a similar group operating with 
escort carrier CORE (CVE-13).  On 30 August, CORE’s 
hunter-killer group contacted an enemy submarine.  KEITH, 
assisting in the search, made two hedgehog attacks with 
inconclusive results.

	KEITH continued to operate with the hunter-killer group 
patrolling the vast waters of the Atlantic, escorting 
convoys from "mid-ocean point" to ports in Brazil, Bermuda, 
Newfoundland, Cuba, and the United States.  On 23 April 
1945, the hunter-killer group, operating as a combined force 
against a large wolfpack of U-boats, spotted a partially 
submerged submarine but could not locate it after it dived.  
While searching the next day, FREDERICK C. DAVIS (DE-136), a 
destroyer escort in company, was torpedoed and sunk.  KEITH 
and task group ships headed to the position where FREDERICK 
C. DAVIS had gone down and launched a severe depth charge 
attack that lasted some 12 hours before U-546 was forced to 
surface.  The destroyer escorts opened fire on the 
submarine; and KEITH made two direct hits before the U-boat 
sank.  After the engagement, KEITH rescued four survivors 
from the submarine.  

	In mid-July, KEITH departed Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for 
duty in the Pacific.  KEITH found herself in Pearl Harbor at 
the end of hostilities and got underway for Saipan for 
escort duty and mop-up operations.  Shortly after arriving, 
31 August, she was assigned an air-sea rescue station 
between Iwo Jima and Japan.  At the end of the year KEITH 
sailed for China, arriving Shanghai on the last day of 
December.  She remained there patrolling and escorting 
vessels until sailing for home on 10 April 1946 via Pearl 
Harbor and the Panama Canal arriving at Charleston, S.C., 15 
May 1946.  KEITH was towed to Green Cove Springs, Fla., 
where she was decommissioned and placed in reserve 20 
September 1946.  At present she is berthed at Orange, Tex.

	KEITH received one battle star for World War II 
service.

	[Stricken from the Navy Register on 1 November 1972, 
KEITH was sold on 18 January 1974.

K. Jack Bauer and Stephen S. Roberts, “Register of Ships of 
the U. S. Navy, 1775-1990,” p.225.]


Transcribed by Michael Hansen
mhansen2@attbi.com