Built as a coastal supply vessel by Kewaunee Shipbuilding and Engineering Company at Kewaunee, Wisconsin, U.S.A. for the United States Army Transportation Corps.
16 April 1944 launched as the FP-344, sponsored by Mrs. C.L.Duvall.
Displacement 550 ton standard, 895 ton full load, dim. 53.9 x 9.7 x 2.7m. (draught)
Powered by two 6-cyl. diesel engines, 1.000hp, speed 12.7 knots.
Armament 2 – Browning 50 calibre machine guns.
05 July 1944 delivered.
Later renamed in FS-344 and served in the Philippines waters as an army harbour craft.
1954 Laid up in reserve, first in Clatskanie, Ore, then at Rio Vista, California.
The FS type was perhaps the Army’s most successful ship design during World War II, and after the war the type was very popular for all kind of use.
Forty-seven of this type went to the USA Navy under which the FS-344.
12 April 1966 transferred to the navy. Renamed USS PUEBLO (AKL-44), named after a city and county in Colorado.
18 June 1966 converted in an environmental research ship by the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
02 May 1967 redesignated (AGER-2)
13 May 1967 commissioned, under command of Comdr. Lloyd M. Bucher.
Crew 81.
Following shakedown and operations off the west coast, PUEBLO departed San Diego 6 November 1967, enroute to Pearl Harbor and Yokosuka, Japan. Arriving at the latter 1 December, PUEBLO was assigned to intelligence and oceanographic data collection duties in the Sea of Japan. On 23 January 1968, while in international waters, the ship was closed by a North Korean patrol boat and ordered to heave to or be fired upon. PUEBLO continued on.
Additional patrol craft later joined the first and, after firing on PUEBLO and wounding four of her crew, boarded the PUEBLO and took her into Wonsan harbor. Her 80 surviving crew members and two civilian oceanographers, held captive for 11 months, were released at Panmunjom 23 December 1968.
October 1999 she was towed from Wonson on the east coast around the Korean Peninsula, to Nampo on the west coast.
Till today (2009) she is still held by North Korea, moored at Pyongyang and is one of the tourist attractions there.
She still remains a commissioned vessel of the United States Navy.
More information is given on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_(AGER-2)
North Korea 2008 12ch, sg?, scott? and 2005 3ch sg?, scott4446
Source: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. US Army Ships and Watercraft of World War II by David H. Grover.
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