Allied Warships

USS PE-56 (PE-56)

Patrol craft of the Eagle class

Navy	The US Navy
Type	Patrol craft
Class	Eagle
Pennant	PE-56
Built by	Ford Motor Co. (Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A.)
Ordered
Laid down	25 Mar 1919
Launched	15 Aug 1919
Commissioned	26 Oct 1919
Lost	23 Apr 1945
Loss position	43° 33'N, 70° 10'W

History	Completed in October 1919 as submarine chaser USS Eagle No. 56. On 17 Jul, 1920, reclassified as patrol craft USS PE-56. On 23 Apr, 1945, USS PE-56 (Lt. James Early, USNR) broke in two and sank after a heavy explosion amidships 3 nautical miles south-southeast of Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The commander, four officers and 44 ratings were lost. One officer and twelve ratings were picked up about 30 minutes later by USS Selfridge. U-853 was known to operate in the area, but could not report her success because she was herself lost a few days later. Some survivors reported the sighting of a conning tower and saw the colors of the emblem on U-853. In June 2001 the US Navy finally changed its assessment of the loss of USS PE-56. The original assessment claimed that the ship had been sunk by a boiler explosion - in stark contrast to what the survivors of the ship reported. Hit by U-boat Sunk on 23 Apr 1945 by U-853 (Frömsdorf).
U-boat Attack	See our U-boat attack entry for the USS PE-56

Commands listed for USS PE-56 (PE-56)

Please note that we're still working on this section
and that we only list Commanding Officers for the duration of the Second World War.

	Commander	From	To
1	James Lawson Kemper, USN	28 Apr 1939

2	Lt.Cdr. F. W. Parsons, USNR	Nov 1940	3 Apr 1943 (1)
3	James W Roddy, USNR	3 Apr 1943	March 1944
4	Lt.Cdr. John L. Barr, Jr., USNR	Mar 1944	23 Jan 1945 (1)
5	Lt. James G. Early, USNR	23 Jan 1945	23 Apr 1945 (1)

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Notable events involving PE-56 include:

28 Feb 1942
USS PE-56 picks up the survivors from the American destroyer USS Jacob Jones (DD 130) which had been sunk by German U-boat U-578 earlier that day off Cape May.