(AM-271: dp. 625; l. 184'6"; b. 33'; dr. 9'9"; s. 15 k.; cpl. 104; a. 1 3", 4 40mm.; cl. Admirable)
To find a way through.
Penetrate (AM-271) was laid down by the Gulf Shipbuilding Corp., Chickasaw, Ala., 5 January 1943; launched 11 September 1943; sponsored by Miss Frances M. Moyer, and commissioned 31 March 1944; Lt. M.S. Lazaron, Jr., in command.
On 14 April 1944 Penetrate stood down river to the gulf, whence she sailed for the east coast and shakedown in Chesapeake Bay. By late May she was undergoing training in Casco Bay, and, on 1 June, she steamed north to Argentia, Nfld., where she was converted to a weather patrol vessel. For the next six months she patrolled between Greenland and Canada to track and record changes in the polar maritime air masses affecting the European battlefronts and the transatlantic air routes. In early January, 1945, Penetrate's meteorologic instruments were removed and minesweeping gear was reinstalled. On the 31st she headed south to Philadelphia, arriving 7 February for an abbreviated overhaul prior to transfer under Lend Lease to the Soviet Union.
Penetrate sailed, 27 February, for the Panama Canal enroute to the transfer point, Cold Bay, Alaska. She arrived 15 April and for the next month trained the Soviet crew which assumed responsibility for the minesweeper following Penetrate's decommissioning and formal transfer 21 May 1945.
Neither returned to the United States nor purchased, Penetrate was redesignated MSF-271 on 7 February 1955 and continues to be carried on the Navy List into 1970.
