The USS Finch (DE-328) was an Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the United States Navy during World War II. Launched on 28 August 1943 at Orange, Texas, and commissioned on 13 December 1943, the vessel featured a standard design typical of its class, intended for convoy escort and anti-submarine warfare. She carried a crew of approximately 182 men and was named in honor of Ensign Joseph Warren Finch Jr., a Navy officer who was killed in action during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. Constructed at the Orange shipyard, the USS Finch saw active service in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters. Early in her career, she arrived in Curaçao in March 1944 and escorted two oil tanker convoys to Casablanca and Algiers, continuing her escort duties through May. She participated in Operation Dragoon, the Allied invasion of southern France, escorting shipping from Norfolk in July 1944. Following this, Finch escorted five convoys from New York and Boston to Great Britain between September 1944 and May 1945. After Germany’s surrender, Finch transitioned to the Pacific theater, arriving at Pearl Harbor in July 1945. She joined a carrier task force at Guam and participated in occupation duties following Japan’s surrender, including the evacuation of Allied prisoners of war from Korea to Formosa in September 1945. During her operational period from 1943 to 1947, Finch visited 63 ports across the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific Oceans, escorting a total of 18 convoys. From 1951 to 1954, she was loaned to the U.S. Coast Guard and served as USCGC Finch (WDE-428), primarily on weather station duties during the Korean War. Upon returning to the Navy, she was converted into a radar picket escort vessel and reclassified as DER-328 in 1956. Her home ports included Seattle, Pearl Harbor, and San Francisco, where she performed early warning patrols until 1962. The USS Finch appeared briefly in the 1969 film *Tora! Tora! Tora!* portraying the USS Ward. She was decommissioned at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on 3 October 1969, stricken in 1974, and subsequently sold for scrap. Her service highlights her role in convoy escort, occupation duties, and early warning radar operations during the Cold War era.

This description has been generated using GPT-4.1-NANO based on the Vessel's wikidata information and then modified by ShipIndex.org staff.