Here we see the beautiful Miguel Malvar-class offshore patrol “corvette” BRP Sultan Kudarat (PS-22) of the Philippine Navy on 5 July 2019, as she gave her last day of military service in a career that began in 1944– giving her a rock solid 75 years of hard duty across three fleets. Not bad for a ship considered at the time of her construction to be disposable.
If she looks familiar, she was originally built as USS PCE-895 a former PCE-842-class Patrol Craft Escort, by the Willamette Iron and Steel Corp., of Portland, Oregon during WWII. She patrolled Alaskan coastal waters in the tail end of the war and was later dubbed USS Crestview.
A picture of USS Crestview PCE-895 as she appears in a Christmas card from the 1955 edition of Our Navy magazine via Navsource. She hasn’t changed much!
Transferred to the Republic of South Vietnam 29 November 1961, she later became Dong Da II (HQ 07)
Derived from the 180-foot Admirable-class minesweeper as a substitute for the much more numerous 173-foot PC-461-class of submarine chasers that were used for coastal ASW, the PCE-842-class was just eight feet longer but a lot heavier (650-tons vs 450-tons), which gave them much longer endurance, although roughly the same armament. They carried a single 3″/50 dual purpose mount, three 40mm Bofors mounts, five Oerlikon 20 mm mounts, two depth charge tracks, four depth charge projectors, and two depth charge projectors (hedgehogs)– making them pretty deadly to subs while giving them enough punch to take on small gunboats/trawlers and low numbers of incoming aircraft.
While the U.S. got rid of their 842s wholesale by the 1970s– scrapping some and sinking others as targets– several continued to serve in overseas Allied navies for decades.
When Saigon fell in April 1975, Crestview/Dong Da II beat feet as part of the South Vietnamese exile flotilla to Luzon, where she, like most of that force, was later absorbed into Manila’s own forces.
The Philippines has used no less than 11 of these retired PCEs between craft transferred outright from the U.S. and ships taken up from former Vietnamese service, eventually replacing their Glen Miller-era GM 12-567A diesel with more modern GM 12-278As, as well as a host of improvements to their sensors (they now carry the SPS-64 surface search and commercial nav radars, for instance.) Gone are the ASW weapons and sonar, but they do still pack the old 3-incher, long since retired by just about everyone else, as well as a smattering of Bofors and Oerlikon.
Sultan Kudarat has reportedly been retired in preparation for the arrival of a more capable Pohang-class vessel that has been donated by South Korea.
The country still has four of the class on their Naval List, expected to retire by 2022.
- BRP Miguel Malvar (PS-19), former USS Brattleboro (PCE(R)-852), ex RVN Ngọc Hồi, since 1975.
- BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20), former USS Gayety (AM-239), ex RVN MSF-239, since 1975.
- BRP Cebu (PS-28), former USS PCE-881, transferred from the U.S. in 1948.
- BRP Pangasinan (PS-31), former USS PCE-891, transferred from the U.S. in 1948.