U S NAVY 4th FLEET AT RECIFE - SHIP INDEX PC PCE PG PY PYC
9)PC 495 PATROL CRAFT
Photo. 1201049501.jpg (750×436) (navsource.org) PC 495 launched at Dravo Corp. December 1941. By Bob Daly 1181
Laid down 10 June 1941 by the Dravo Corp., Neville Island, Pittsburgh, PA
Launched 30 December 1941
Commissioned USS PC-495, 23 April 1942
Struck from the Naval Register 25 February 1946
Transferred to the State Department, Foreign Liquidation Commission in June 1947
Transferred to Thailand in 1947 and named HTMS Sarasin (PC 1)
Decommissioned 30 September 1992 and sunk as a target.
Specifications:
Displacement 280 t.(lt), 450 t.(fl)
Length 173' 8"
Beam 23'
Draft 10' 10"
Speed 20.2 kts.
Complement 65.
Armament one 3"/50 dual purpose gun mount, one 40mm gun mount; three 20mm guns, two rocket launchers, four depth charge projectiles, and two depth charge tracks.
Propulsion two 2,880bhp Hooven-Owen-Rentschler R-99DA diesel engines (Serial No. 6664 and 6665), Westinghouse single reduction gear, two shafts.
B. P. Newton (on charter to British Tanker Co. Ltd.) was torpedoed by U-510 (Eick) on July 8-1943 while in Convoy TJ 1 consisting of 20 ships from Trinidad for Bahia with a cargo of 14 700 tons aviation fuel as well as 500 barrels of lube oil (for East London and Beira), having departed Trinidad on July 3 escorted by the American destroyer USS Somers (DD 381), 4 American including PC 495 and a Brazilian escort vessel.
24 survivors, 12 of them badly burned were picked up by the escort vessels, which searched the whole day for other survivors, but it was not tried to reboard the B.P. Newton because the side-plates were red-glowing and no one was expected to be alive onboard. She sank about 150 miles northeast of Cayenne, French Guiana. All survivors were rescued by USS PC 495, later transferred to USS Somers and landed at Recife on 17 July.
At the same day USS PC-495 picks up 66 survivors from the American merchant Eldena that was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-510 about 150 nautical miles north-east of Cayenne, French Guyana in position 05º50'N, 50º20'W.
