USS Erie (PG-50)

USS Erie in 1940
History
United States
Name:	Erie
Namesake:	City of Erie, Pennsylvania
Ordered:	1 November 1933
Builder:	New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, New York
Cost:	$6,047,216
Way number:	Dry Dock #1
Laid down:	17 December 1934
Launched:	29 February 1936
Sponsored by:	Mrs. Edmund A. Knoll
Commissioned:	1 July 1936
Struck:	28 July 1943
Identification:	Hull symbol: PG-50
Honors and awards:	1 Battle Stars American Defense Service Medal with "FLEET" clasp American Campaign Medal World War II Victory Medal
Fate:	Torpedoed and beached on 12 November 1942; capsized during attempted salvage, 5 December
General characteristics
Class and type:	Erie-class gunboat
Displacement:	2,000 t (2,000 long tons) (standard) 2,830 t (2,790 long tons) (full load)
Length:	328 ft 6 in (100.13 m) o/a 308 ft (94 m) p.p.
Beam:	41 ft 3 in (12.57 m)
Height:	104 ft 11.25 in (31.9850 m)
Draft:	14 ft 10 in (4.52 m) (full load)
Installed power:	6,200 shp (4,600 kW)
Propulsion:	2 × Parsons geared single reduction steam turbines 2 × Babcock & Wilcox boilers 2 × shafts
Speed:	20 kn (23 mph; 37 km/h)
Range:	8,000 nmi (9,200 mi; 15,000 km) at 12 kn (14 mph; 22 km/h)
Complement:	231
Sensors and processing systems:	Mark 3 Fire-control radar (mounted atop battery director) ASDIC Sonar
Armament:	4 × 6 in (150 mm)/47 caliber, Mark 17 guns 2 × 3-pounder (47mm)/47 cal, gun, Single mount saluting guns (2x1) 4 × .5 in (13 mm) Browning Machine Gun, Cal. .50, M2, HB, single anti-aircraft guns (4x1)(removed in refit) 4 × 1.1 in (28 mm)/75 caliber, quadruple anti-aircraft guns (4x4) (replaced .50 M2's in refit) 6 × 20 mm (0.79 in) anti-aircraft guns, single anti-aircraft guns (6x1)(refit if aircraft removed) 2 × Mark 6 Depth charge racks (each holding 15 depth charges)(refit)
Armor:	Side belt (over vital places): 3.5 in (8.9 cm) Deck: 1.25 in (3.2 cm) Conning Tower: 4 in (10 cm) Gunshields: 1 in (2.5 cm)
Aircraft carried:	1 × floatplane "Seagull"(original equipment, replaced in refit) 1 × floatplane "Kingfisher" (may not have been removed)
Aviation facilities:	Derrick

USS Erie (PG-50) was the lead ship in a class of two United States Navy patrol gunboats. Launched and commissioned in 1936, she operated in the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea until torpedoed and fatally damaged by a German submarine in 1942.

Erie was ordered in June 1933 and laid down at the New York Naval Shipyard on 17 December 1934. This marked a couple of "firsts" for the New York Navy Yard. One, was that the first rivets driven into Erie's keel were by civilian employees rather than ranking Navy officers. This included, Rober H. Hanlon, labor foreman, was the rivet heater, William H. Jennings, master electrician, was the rivateer, Charles E. Botts, master rigger, the holder-on, and Victor Carissime, master boilermaker, and Frank Connors, master ship fitter, were the rivet-passers. The other was that the ship was built in the Yard's No. 1 Dry Dock instead of on a slip. Rear Admiral Yates Stirling, Jr., Commandant of the Third Naval District and the New York Navy Yard, Captain Charles Dunn, industrial manager of the Yard, and Mrs. Edmund Knoll (née Ida May Illig), Erie's sponsor, were all present for the keel-laying ceremony. Mrs. Knoll wouldn't be formally announced as the sponsor until October 1935.

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