Editing Tacoma-class frigate (section)

==Service==
By the time the first ''Tacoma''-class ships were ready for front-line service in 1944, the US Navy{{'}}s requirement for them had passed, thanks to a decline in the threat from [[Axis powers|Axis]] submarines, and the availability of ample numbers of [[destroyer]]s and destroyer escorts, which the Navy regarded as much superior to the ''Tacoma'' class. The Navy crewed all of the ''Tacoma''-class ships with [[United States Coast Guard]] personnel. The Consolidated Steel-built ships, thanks to their superior reliability and performance, all saw service in the [[Pacific War|Pacific war zone]] where one, {{USS|Rockford|PF-48|2}}, teamed with the [[Minesweeper (ship)|minesweeper]] {{USS|Ardent|AM-340|2}} to sink the Japanese submarine [[Japanese submarine I-12|''I-12'']] in November 1944, but the US Navy generally relegated the patrol frigates to local training and escort responsibilities, and to duty as [[weather ship]]s, for which the aft-mounted 3-inch gun was removed in order to allow the installation of a [[weather balloon]] [[hangar]].<ref name="Russell p. 22"/><ref name="Conway's 1922-1946"/>

The United States built an additional 21 ''Tacoma''-class ships for the United Kingdom for service in the Royal Navy, where they were known as the [[Colony-class frigate|Colony class]], and all but one of them initially received British names, rather than the names of small US cities, while still US Navy ships; they were returned to the United States between 1946 and 1948. Eighteen of these were quickly scrapped, but two were sold to [[Egypt]], for use as civilian passenger ships, and one to [[Argentina]], for service as a warship in the [[Argentine Navy]].<ref>Gardiner, Robert, ed., ''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946'', New York: Mayflower Books, 1980, {{ISBN|0-8317-0303-2}}, p. 62.</ref><ref name="DANFS">{{Cite web |url=http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/ |title=''Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships'' |access-date=11 June 2006 |archive-date=30 January 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060130095752/http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/ |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="Navsource">[http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/08idx.htm Navsource Patrol Frigate (PF) Index]</ref>

As a part of [[Project Hula]], a secret 1945 program that transferred 149 US Navy ships to the [[Soviet Navy]] at [[Cold Bay, Alaska]], in anticipation of the [[Soviet Union]] joining the [[Pacific War|war against Japan]], the US Navy transferred 28 ''Tacoma''-class ships to the Soviet Navy between July and September 1945. They were the largest, most heavily armed, and most expensive ships transferred during the program. At least some of them saw action in the [[Soviet–Japanese War (1945)|Soviet offensive]] against Japanese forces in Northeast Asia, in August 1945. The transfer of two more, {{USS|Annapolis|PF-15|2}} and {{USS|Bangor|PF-16|2}}, was cancelled when transfers halted on 5 September 1945. One of the transferred ships, ''EK-3'' (ex-{{USS|Belfast|PF-35|2}}), ran aground and was damaged beyond economical repair in a November 1948 storm off [[Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky]], but the Soviet Union returned the other 27 frigates to the United States in October and November 1949.<ref name="Russell p. 39">Russell, Richard A., ''Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan'', Washington, D.C.: [[Naval Historical Center]], 1997, {{ISBN|0-945274-35-1}}, pp. 12, 22–23, 35, 37–38, 39.</ref>

The US Navy quickly decommissioned 23 ''Tacoma''-class ships after the end of World War II, after only very brief US Navy careers, and sold them for scrap in 1947 and 1948, although one, the former {{USS|Charlotte|PF-60|2}}, was saved from the scrapyard to become a Brazilian merchant ship. The 27 ships the Soviet Union returned in 1949 went into the US Navy{{'}}s [[Pacific Reserve Fleet]] in Japan; 13 of them were recommissioned for US Navy service in the [[Korean War]], but all 27 soon were transferred to the navies of other countries. The other 25 ''Tacoma''-class ships never returned to service in the US Navy and also were transferred to foreign countries. In the post-World War II era, ''Tacoma''-class patrol frigates operated in the [[Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force]], the [[Republic of Korea Navy]], and the Argentine, [[Belgian Navy|Belgian]], [[Colombian Navy|Colombian]], [[Cuban Navy|Cuban]], [[Dominican Navy|Dominican]], [[Ecuadorian Navy|Ecuadorian]], [[French Navy|French]], [[Mexican Navy|Mexican]], [[Royal Netherlands Navy|Royal Netherlands]], [[Peruvian Navy|Peruvian]], and [[Royal Thai Navy|Royal Thai]] navies, and one ship operated as a civilian weather ship for the government of the Netherlands.<ref name="Conway's 1922-1946"/> In foreign navies, many ''Tacoma''-class ships survived into the 1960s and 1970s, and the last operator of ''Tacoma''-class patrol frigates, [[Thailand]], did not retire its two ships until 2000.