USSAdmirable (AM-136) underway in 1944.
History
United States
Name	USSAdmirable (AMc-113)
Builder	Tampa Shipbuilding Company,Tampa,Florida
Reclassified	AM-136, 21 February 1942
Laid down	8 April 1942
Launched	18 October 1942
Sponsored by	Mrs. Ann Pillsbury Fehr
Commissioned	20 April 1943
Decommissioned	19 July 1945[1]
Fate	Transferred toSoviet Navy, 19 July 1945[1]
Reclassified	MSF-136, 7 February 1955
Stricken	1 January 1983
History
Soviet Union
Name	T-331[2]
Acquired	19 July 1945[1]
Commissioned	19 July 1945[1]
Fate	Stricken 1958[3]
General characteristics
Class & type	Admirable-class minesweeper
Displacement	650 tons
Length	184 ft 6 in (56.24 m)
Beam	33 ft (10 m)
Draft	9 ft 9 in (2.97 m)
Propulsion	2 × ALCOdiesel engines, 1,710 shp (1.3 MW) 2 shafts
Speed	15 knots (27.8 km/h)
Complement	104
Armament	1 ×3"/50 caliber gun 6 ×Oerlikon 20 mm cannon 4 ×Bofors 40 mm gun 1 ×Hedgehog 4 ×depth charge projectors 2 × depth charge racks 2 × Minesweepingparavanes
Service record
Part of:	United States Pacific Fleet (1943–1945) Soviet Pacific Ocean Fleet (1945-1958)

USSAdmirable (AM-136) was thelead ship ofher class ofminesweeper built for theUnited States Navy duringWorld War II. In commission from 1943 to 1945, she was transferred to theSoviet Navy in 1945 and served asT-331 until stricken in 1958.^[2]

Originally classified as a "coastal minesweeper,"AMc-113,Admirable was reclassified as a minesweeper, AM-136, on 21 February 1942. She waslaid down on 8 April 1942 atTampa,Florida, by theTampa Shipbuilding Company. She waslaunched on 18 October 1942, sponsored by Mrs. Ann Pillsbury Fehr, daughter ofCommander Horace W. Pillsbury, andcommissioned on 20 April 1943.

Admirable departed Tampa on 23 April 1943 and conducted ashakedown cruise in theGulf of Mexico before heading forHampton Roads,Virginia, on 23 June 1943.Admirable operated out ofNaval Amphibious Base Little Creek, Virginia, for five months of training inantisubmarine warfare,minelaying, andmine sweeping techniques. After upkeep andfitting-out, she departedNaval Station Norfolk, Virginia, on 28 November 1943 in company with theinternal combustion enginerepair shipUSS Luzon (ARG-2) for duty in thePacific. Transiting thePanama Canal on 8 December 1943,Admirable continued on toSan Diego, California, where she moored on 18 December 1943. In January 1944, following tests at theWest Coast Sound School, she received orders to proceed independently toAdak,Territory of Alaska. During the voyage, she encountered heavy seas which damaged hersonar gear. Following her arrival inKuluk Bay,Adak Island, on 6 February 1944, she wasdrydocked for repairs.

On 13 February 1944,Admirable was assigned toTask Group 91.2 (TG 91.2). She operated from Adak, escortingmerchant andtroopships to such ports in Alaska and theAleutian Islands asKodiak,Dutch Harbor,Amchitka,Kiska,Cold Bay, andAttu Island. On four occasions during her 18-month tour in the Aleutians,Admirable went alongside thedestroyer tenderUSS Black Hawk (AD-9) at Adak briefly to repair damage caused by the cold weather, heavy seas, and violent, gusting winds known as "williwaws".

In July 1944,Admirable began to clear theminefield inChiniak Bay offKodiak Island. She was the lead ship of a group, composed of the minesweepersUSS Augury (AM-149),USS Agile (AMc-111), andUSS Affray (AMc-112), and theauxiliary motor minesweeperUSS YMS-285, which, on 2 August 1944, began a sweep of the channel toSt. Paul's Harbor. The minesweepers then established patrols outside the harbor to await the arrival ofPresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt aboard theheavy cruiserUSS Baltimore (CA-68). Roosevelt had left San Diego on 14 July, steamed toPearl Harbor,Territory of Hawaii, to meet withGeneralDouglas MacArthur andAdmiralChester Nimitz to discuss plans for theinvasion of the Philippines, and stopped at Kodiak on 7 August 1944.Baltimore pulled out of St. Paul's Harbor the same day, and Roosevelt continued his journey back to the United States aboard thedestroyerUSS Cummings (DD-365).Admirable then resumed escort duty and continued that work into March 1945.

On 14 March 1945,Admirable'scommanding officer was designatedofficer in tactical command of eight ships and all aircraft participating in a combined air-surface attack on a fictitioussubmarine in Kuluk Bay. The minesweeper then returned to her escort duties.

Selected for transfer to theSoviet Navy inProject Hula, a secret program for the transfer of U.S. Navy ships to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay in anticipation of theSoviet Union joining thePacific War,Admirable proceeded to Dutch Harbor in May 1945 for repairs preparatory to her transfer. Because of the continual beating of the heavy seas, 12 feet (3.7 meters) of the forward end of each of herbilge keels as well as her sonar gear were replaced. With her repairs complete, she then steamed to Cold Bay, where Soviet NavyRear AdmiralBoris Dmitrievich Popov, the Soviet commanding officer at Cold Bay under Project Hula, inspectedAdmirable on 30 May 1945 and accepted her for transfer to the Soviet Union. On 18 June 1945, a Soviet crew reported on board to train for one month in gunnery, engineering, and mine sweeping procedures.

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew,Admirable wasdecommissioned on 19 July 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union underLend-Lease immediately.^[1] Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, she was designated as atralshik ("mine sweeper") and renamedT-331 in Soviet service.^[2] She soon departed Cold Bay bound forPetropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she served in theSoviet Far East.^[4]

In February 1946, the United States began negotiations for the return of ships loaned to the Soviet Union for use during World War II, and on 8 May 1947,United States Secretary of the NavyJames V. Forrestal informed theUnited States Department of State that theUnited States Department of the Navy wanted 480 of the 585 combatant ships it had transferred to the Soviet Union returned. Deteriorating relations between the two countries as theCold War broke out led to protracted negotiations over the ships, and by the mid-1950s the U.S. Navy found it too expensive to bring home ships that had become worthless to it anyway. Many ex-American ships were merely administratively "returned" to the United States and instead sold for scrap in the Soviet Union, while the U.S. Navy did not seriously pursue the return of others because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery.^[5] The Soviet Union never returnedAdmirable to the United States, although the U.S. Navy reclassified her as a "fleet minesweeper" (MSF) and renamed herMSF-136 on 7 February 1955.

T-331 was stricken in 1958^[3] and apparently was sold for scrap in the Soviet Union. Unaware of this, the U.S. Navy retainedAdmirable on itsNaval Vessel Register until finally striking her name on 1 January 1983.

•  This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.

• Photo gallery of USSAdmirable at NavSource Naval History
• hazegray.org: USSAdmirable

• Admirable-class minesweepers
• Ships built in Tampa, Florida
• 1942 ships
• World War II minesweepers of the United States
• Admirable-class minesweepers of the Soviet Navy
• World War II minesweepers of the Soviet Union
• Cold War minesweepers of the Soviet Union
• Ships transferred under Project Hula

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from August 2021
• Articles containing Russian-language text
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships