Garnet (PYc-15)
1942-1945
A brittle, often crystalline, glasslike mineral found In a variety of colors. The most precious variety, used as a gem, is of a deep red.
(PYc-15: displacement 490; length 156'9"; beam 25'6"; draft 9'5"; speed 12 knots; complement 50; armament 1 3 inch, 4 .50 caliber machine guns, 2 30 caliber machine guns, 2 depth charge tracks)
Caritas -- a steel-hulled diesel yacht built in 1925 at Kiel, Germany, by Krupp Iron Works -- was purchased by the Navy on 1 December 1941 from Mr. J. Perch Bartram of New York, N.Y.; classified as a converted yacht, patrol vessel (coastal), PYc-15, and renamed Garnet; was convertedat the yard of Robert Jacobs Co., Inc., New York; and commissioned on 4 July 1942, Cmdr. Donald D. Murray in command.
Garnet departed New York on 21 July 1942 for brief operations in Chesapeake Bay. After shakedown off Key West and Miami, she steamed via the Bahamas and the Panama Canal to San Diego, arriving on 22 September. After coastal patrol off southern California, she departed San Diego on 2 December for the Hawaiian Islands, reaching Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii, on 15 December. Except for an escort mission to Funafuti, Ellice Islands, in November 1943, Garnet spent the remainder of World War II on convoy escort and patrol duty between Pearl Harbor and Midway.
Garnet returned to San Pedro, Calif., on 15 November 1945 and was decommissioned there four days after Christmas, on 29 December 1945. Delivered to the Maritime Commission for disposal on 20 February 1947, the veteran of Pacific patrol duty was sold on 10 June 1947 to Mr. I. W. Lambert of Baltimore, Maryland.
