USS Davenport To Be Launched In November
At Sturgeon Bay; Mayor’s Wife Will Be Sponsor
With Mrs. Ed. Frick, wife of Davenport’s mayor as the sponsor, the 303 foot escort frigate, USS Davenport, is scheduled to be launched soon, probably in November, at the yards of the Leathem D. Smith Shipbuilding Co., at the Great Lakes port of Sturgeon Bay, Wis.
Headed by Mayor Frick, a delegation of Davenport city officials, and business and civic leaders is expected to attend the ceremonies in the Wisconsin city. The launching date will depend on when the ship will be ready to slide down the ways.
Four sister ships of the USS Davenport have already been launched and are being made ready for active duty. They are the USS Knoxville and the USS Chattanooga,both named for the Tennessee cities; the USS Reading,named for Reading, Pa., and the USS Peoria,named for the Illinois city. The USS Davenport will be of the PF type and will carry number 69.
The historic designation “frigate” has been given this new type twin screw escort vessels, scores of which are being built for the navy throughout the nation’s shipyards.
The first American frigates were built to intercept surface raiders of the Barbary pirates preying on our shipping in the Mediterranean about 150 years ago. Soon large fleets of modern frigates will go into action on the high seas against both surface and under-sea raiders which are now menacing our convoys.
The Davenport and her sister ships are the largest size strictly escort vessels built for convoying of merchant shipping. They are similar in design to the British and Canadian corvettes, also named for early fighting craft, and are almost identical to the navy’s new destroyer-escort DE vessels, but are different in the amount propulsion power and the type of propulsion equipment. The frigates will be powered by reciprocating steam engines. They are heavily armed and are of all-weld construction.
A sizable fleet of these new ships are being built at the Smith shipyard. The ships are primarily heavy duty vessels.
Source: The Quad-City Times, Davenport, Iowa, Monday, October 11, 1943
