USS Lorain (PF-93)


USS Lorain , a, was the first commissioned ship of the United States Navy to be named for Lorain, Ohio.

Construction

Lorain was authorized as Roanoke and laid down as Roanoke under a Maritime Commission contract by American Ship Building Company, Lorain, Ohio, 25 October 1943. She was renamed Lorain on 7 February 1944; launched on 18 March 1944, sponsored by Mrs. Fred Henderson; and commissioned at Baltimore, Maryland, on 15 January 1945, with Lieutenant Commander James G. Ramsay, Jr., USCGR, in command.

Service history

Lorain departed Baltimore on 28 January 1945 for Norfolk, Virginia, and Bermuda, where the Coast Guard-manned frigate underwent shakedown and training. After further training in Casco Bay, Maine, she sailed on 11 April for NS Argentia, Newfoundland, her base for weather patrols through the following summer. Operating out of Argentia and later Reykjavík, Iceland, she ranged the North Atlantic from the coastal waters of Greenland to waters north of the Azores, reporting vital meteorological data.
Lorain returned to Boston on 14 September, conducted a weather patrol off New England in late October, then sailed on 2 December for duty in the Caribbean. An escort run took her to Recife, Brazil, early in 1946, and after two weather patrols east of Bermuda, she returned to Boston on 7 March, and decommissioned there on 14 March 1946.
She was sold on 26 March 1947 to the French Navy and commissioned on the same day as La Place. Disarmed a year later, she served as weather observation ship in the North Atlantic. Shortly after midnight on 16 September 1950, La Place anchored offshore of St. Malo, France. A recent storm had freed a tethered German magnetic sea mine that was left over from World War II. The mine contacted the ship and exploded. La Place sank almost immediately and only 42 of her crew of 75 men were rescued.