From: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol.VIII p 403


Winder

A city in northern Georgia about 20 miles west of Athens and some 40 miles east-northeast of Atlanta. The community is the seat of government for Barrow County.


(PCS--1376: dp. 245 (tl.); 1. 136'0"; b. 24'6"; dr. 8'7"; s. 14.1 k. (tl) ; cpl. 57; a. 1 3", 1 40mm., 2 20mm., 2 dct.; cl. PCS-1376)

PCS--1376 was laid down on 13 October 1942 at Whitestone, N.Y., by the Wheeler Shipbuilding Corp. ; launched on 3 April 1943; sponsored by Mrs. J. E. Flipse; and commissioned on 9 July 1943, Lt. (jg.) J. P. Morgan III, USNR, in command.

Following several days of trials, PCS--1376 departed Long Island for shakedown training in the vicinity of Cuba. At the conclusion of the cruise in August, she reported for duty as a school ship at the Submarine Chaser School located at Miami, Fla. The warship did double duty until the end of 1943 conducting antisubmarine patrols at night and training submarine chaser nucleus crews in the daytime. On New Years Day 1944, she discontinued her nightly antisubmarine patrols and concentrated on preparing crews to man new submarine chasers, On 1 October 1944, she also gave up training duty but continued to support the schools mission by acting as an escort for larger ships conducting the actual at-sea training. That type of duty lasted until the cessation of hostilities in August 1945 at which time she resumed actual onboard training.

That assignment, however, endured for only two months. On 8 October 1945, she received orders to report for duty with the Atlantic Fleet Operational Training Command at Norfolk, Va. On 29 October, she began an extended availability at the conclusion of which on 21 December the ship headed for Norfolk. By March 1946, the submarine chaser was homeported at Charleston, S.C., engaged in training naval reservists. However, by the beginning of 1947, she had moved back to Norfolk, On 28 February 1947, PCS--1376 was placed out of commission but remained active with the 5th Naval District Naval Reserve training program. On 10 June 1947, the ship was placed in service and continued her Naval Reserve training duties at Norfolk. On 4 January 1950, she was again placed out of service and was berthed at Norfolk, In May 1950, she was reassigned from the Norfolk Group, Atlantic Reserve Fleet, to the Green Cove Springs (Fla.) Group. There, she remained until the middle of 1957. On 15 February 1956, she was named Winder. However, she carried that name only 19 months, because her name was struck from the Navy list on 5 September 1957. She was sold for scrapping on 15 April 1958 to Mr. Fred Irvine of Miami, Fla.