History
United States
Name	USSMirth (AM-265)
Builder	American Shipbuilding Company,Lorain, Ohio
Laid down	31 July 1943
Launched	24 December 1943
Sponsored by	Mrs. B. E. Gathercoal
Commissioned	12 August 1944
Decommissioned	21 May 1945[1]
Fate	Transferred toSoviet Union, 21 May 1945
Reclassified	MSF-265, 7 February 1955
Stricken	1 January 1983[citation needed]
History
Soviet Union
Name	T-277[2]
Acquired	21 May 1945
Commissioned	21 May 1945[1]
Refit	Converted tonaval trawler, 1948[citation needed]
Renamed	Musson, 1948[citation needed]
Fate	Scrapped 1960[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 × 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 (1945-1960)

USSMirth (AM-265) 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-277. The Soviets converted her into anaval trawler in 1948^{[citation needed]} and renamed herMusson.^{[citation needed]}

Mirth waslaid down on 31 July 1943 atLorain, Ohio, by theAmerican Shipbuilding Company,launched on 24 December 1943, sponsored by Mrs. B. E. Gathercoal, andcommissioned on 12 August 1944.

Aftershakedown in theChesapeake Bay,Mirth, a unit ofMine Division 37, got underway on 29 November 1944 for brief duty with Naval Operating BaseBermuda. During December 1944 she operated from St. George's Bay, Bermuda,sweeping the channels and conductingantisubmarine patrols to ensure safe passage into the western terminus of the southerntransatlanticconvoy routes and escorting single vessels to mid-ocean join-ups with convoys en route.

Mirth arrived inVirginia at the end of December 1944 and then continued on toNew York City on 3 January 1945. She remained in the New York City area throughout January 1945. She departed on 8 February 1945 for thePanama Canal and duty in thePacific.

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 –Mirth proceeded to Cold Bay, where she arrived on 3 April 1945 to begin familiarization training of her new Soviet crew.^[3]

Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew,Mirth wasdecommissioned on 21 May 1945^[1] at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union underLend-Lease immediately. Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately,^[1] she was designated as atralshik ("minesweeper") and renamedT-277^[2] in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay bound forPetropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she served in theSoviet Far East.^[3]

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 because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery.^[4] The Soviet Union never returnedMirth to the United States, instead converting her into anaval trawler in 1948^{[citation needed]} and renaming herMusson.^{[citation needed]} Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy reclassified her as a "fleet minesweeper" (MSF) and redesignated herMSF-265 on 7 February 1955.

The ship was scrapped in 1960.^[3] Unaware of her fate, the U.S. Navy keptMirth on itsNaval Vessel Register until finally striking her on 1 January 1983.^{[citation needed]}

•  This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.
• Photo gallery of USSMirth at NavSource Naval History

• Admirable-class minesweepers
• Ships built in Lorain, Ohio
• 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
• Trawlers of the Soviet Navy
• Cold War patrol vessels of the Soviet Union
• Ships transferred under Project Hula

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• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Ship infoboxes without an image
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from March 2013
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• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships