USSPalisade (AM-270) atNorfolk Navy Yard inPortsmouth,Virginia, on 25 April 1944.[1]
History
United States
Name	USSPalisade
Builder	Gulf Shipbuilding Corporation,Chickasaw,Alabama
Laid down	21 September 1942
Launched	26 June 1943
Sponsored by	Mrs. W. C. Ellis
Commissioned	9 March 1944
Decommissioned	22 May 1945[2]
Fate	Transferred toSoviet Navy, 22 May 1945[2]
History
Soviet Union
Name	T-279
Acquired	22 May 1945[2]
Commissioned	22 May 1945[2]
Stricken	1957[3]
Fate	See note[4]
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 × ALCO 539diesel engines, 1,710 shp (1.3 MW) Farrel-Birminghamsingle reduction gear 2 shafts
Speed	14.8 knots (27.4 km/h)
Complement	104
Armament	1 ×3"/50 caliber gun DP 2 × twinBofors 40 mm guns 1 ×Hedgehoganti-submarinemortar 2 ×Depth charge tracks
Service record
Part of:	United States Atlantic Fleet (1944-1945) Soviet Pacific Ocean Fleet (1945-1957)

USSPalisade (AM-270) was anAdmirable-classminesweeper built for theUnited States Navy duringWorld War II and in commission from 1944 to 1945. In 1945 she was transferred to theSoviet Union and served in theSoviet Navy after that asT-279.

Palisade waslaid down atChickasaw,Alabama by theGulf Shipbuilding Corporation on 21 September 1942. She waslaunched on 26 June 1943, sponsored by Mrs. W. C. Ellis, andcommissioned on 9 March 1944.

Followingshakedown,Palisade conductedminesweeping operations atNaval Station Argentia in theDominion of Newfoundland as part ofMine Squadron 33, then wasfitted out as a temporaryweather ship. She patrolled in the North Atlantic on weather reporting duties for the remainder of 1944 with occasional calls atUnited States East Coast ports. In January 1945 she was refitted with minesweeping equipment and, afteroverhaul inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania, deployed to thePanama Canal Zone on 27 February 1945.

Selected for transfer to theSoviet Navy inProject Hula – a secret program for the transfer of U.S. Navy ships to the Soviet Navy atCold Bay,Territory of Alaska, in anticipation of theSoviet Union joining thewar against Japan –Palisade transiting thePanama Canal on 8 March 1945 and proceeded toSeattle,Washington, where she prepared for transfer. With preparations complete, she departed Seattle on 7 April 1945 bound forKodiak, Alaska, then proceeded from Kodiak to Cold Bay, where she begin familiarization training of her new Soviet crew.^[3]

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew,Palisade wasdecommissioned on 22 May 1945^[2] at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union underLend-Lease immediately.^[2] Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately,^[2] she was designated as atralshik ("minesweeper") and renamedT-279 in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay bound forPetropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union,^[3] where she soon entered service with the SovietPacific Ocean Fleet.

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 for World War II use 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 – such asT-279 (ex-Palisade) – because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery.^[5]

The Soviet Union reported thatT-279 has been sunk offKham Island, Korea, on 14 or 15 August 1945, by anaval mine previously laid by American aircraft to target Japanese ships. However, post-Cold War research has found that the ship survived the war and was stricken by the Soviet Navy in 1957.^[4]

•  This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.
• "Palisade".NavSource. Retrieved18 February 2008.

• Admirable-class minesweepers
• Ships built in Chickasaw, Alabama
• 1943 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
• Weather ships
• Ships transferred under Project Hula
• Maritime incidents in August 1945

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• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from January 2020
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• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
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