USS Firecrest (AMc-33)

USS Firecrest (AMc-33)

For other ships of the same name, see USS Firecrest.

Career (US)
Ordered:	as S. G. Giuseppe
Laid down:	1937
Launched:	1937
Acquired:	5 November 1940
In service:	4 April 1941
Out of service:	18 September 1944
Struck:	14 October 1944
Fate:	delivered to the War Shipping Administration on 3 April 1945
General characteristics
Displacement:	170 tons (standard)
Length:	76 ft 6 in (23.32 m) overall
Beam:	21 ft 5 in (6.53 m)
Draft:	4 ft 5 in (1.35 m)
Speed:	9.0 knots (17 km/h)
Complement:	17
Armament:	two .50 cal. machine guns and four rifles

USS Firecrest (AMc-33) was a Firecrest-class coastal minesweeper acquired by the U.S. Navy for the dangerous task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing.

The wooden-hulled purse seiner S. G. Giuseppe, built in 1937 at Wilmington, California, by the boatbuilders Trigoning and Carlson, was acquired by the Navy from M. B. Giuseppe, of San Pedro, California, on 5 November 1940, and delivery and acceptance by the Commandant, 11th Naval District, took place the same day. Conversion to a coastal minesweeper began immediately, at the Campbell Machine Co., of San Diego, California; renamed Firecrest and designated as a coastal minesweeper (AMc-33), the ship was placed in service on 4 April 1941, Ensign Charles S. Judson, Jr., USNR, officer-in-charge.