Following repairs and training at Brisbane, Australia, in August and September 1944, Ogden supported the buildup of men and shipping for the forthcoming invasion of the Philippine Islands, twice escorting convoys from Manus in the Admiralty Islands to New Guinea staging bases. She herself arrived at Leyte in the Philippines on 2 November 1944, bringing up a convoy which included a U.S. Navy tanker, an Australian merchant ship, and ten tugs pulling a variety of tows. When Japanese planes attacked her convoy that night, one bomb missed her by only 50 yards (46 m).
Ogden returned to New Guinea twice to bring reinforcement convoys to Leyte, and on 12 November 1944 shot down three Japanese kamikaze suicide planes attacking merchant shipping off Leyte. Her gunners scored again off New Guinea on 29 November 1944, assisting in the destruction of two of the torpedo planes which attacked her Leyte-bound convoy.
Ogden was decommissioned on 12 July 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately[1] along with nine of her sister ships, the first group of patrol frigates transferred to the Soviet Navy. Commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately,[2]Ogden was designated as a storozhevoi korabl ("escort ship") and renamed EK-10[3] in Soviet service. On 15 July 1945, EK-10 departed Cold Bay in company with nine of her sister ships – EK-1 (ex-Charlottesville), EK-2 (ex-Long Beach), EK-3 (ex-Belfast), EK-4 (ex-Machias), EK-5 (ex-San Pedro), EK-6 (ex-Glendale), EK-7 (ex-Sandusky), EK-8 (ex-Coronado), and EK-9 (ex-Allentown) – bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union. EK-10 served as a patrol vessel in the Soviet Far East.[6]
In February 1946, the United States began negotiations for the return of ships loaned to the Soviet Union for use during World War II. On 8 May 1947, United States Secretary of the NavyJames V. Forrestal informed the United States Department of State that the United States Department of the Navy wanted 480 of the 585 combatant ships it had transferred to the Soviet Union for World War II use returned, EK-10 among them. Negotiations for the return of the ships was protracted, but on 15 October 1949 the Soviet Union finally returned EK-10 to the U.S. Navy at Yokosuka, Japan.[7]
Reverting to her original name, Ogden was placed in reserve at Yokosuka until transferred to Japan on 14 January 1953, when she became one of the first ships the United States loaned to Japan under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program to serve in the Japanese Safety Security Force as Kusu (PF-1) (くす (PF-1), "camphor tree").[8] She simultaneously was assigned to the 1st Fleet, which was created that day, along with her sister shipsNara (ex-USS Machias (PF-53)), Kashi (ex-USS Pasco (PF-6)), and Momi (ex-USS Poughkeepsie (PF-26)), all similarly lent to Japan. All four ships were assigned to the Yokosuka District Force. On 1 April 1953, the 1st Fleet became part of the newly created 1st Fleet Group. The 1st Fleet later was renamed the 1st Escort Corps.
In 1954, the Safety Security Force became the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF). On 1 April 1956, Kusu was transferred to the 11th Escort Flotilla, which the JMSDF formed that day. On 10 May 1957, the 11th Escort Flotilla was abolished and its ships became part of the new 1st Training Corps, under which Kusu participated in the 1st Training Corps's first oceanic training voyage. Kusu was redesignated PF-281 on 1 September 1957[8]
Kusu was transferred to the Yokosuka District Force on 10 December 1963. In 1964 she was converted into a mother ship for drones. The conversion included the removal of her after 3-inch (76.2 mm) gun and reduction of her Oerlikon 20 mm cannon, Y-gundepth charge projector, and depth charge track armament and the installation of a drone storage and maintenance hangar.
Kusu was reclassified as an "auxiliary service craft" and renamed YAS-50 on 31 March 1970,[8] then reclassified as an "auxiliary storage vessel" and renamed YAC-22 on 31 March 1971.[8] She was decommissioned on 1 April 1976 and returned to U.S. custody on 28 June 1977. She was scrapped in 1977.[9]
^ abcNavSource Online: Frigate Photo Archive Ogden (PF 39) ex-PG-147 states that Ogden was transferred on 13 July 1945, but Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, p. 39, which includes access to Soviet-era records unavailable during the Cold War, reports that the transfer date was 12 July 1945. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994.
^ abAccording to Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, which includes access to Soviet-era records unavailable during the Cold War, Project Hula ships were commissioned into the Soviet Navy simultaneously with their transfer from the U.S. Navy; see photo captions on p. 24 regarding the transfers of various large infantry landing craft (LCI(L)s) and information on p. 27 about the transfer of USS Coronado (PF-38), which Russell says typified the transfer process. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994.
^ abNavSource Online: Frigate Photo Archive Ogden (PF 39) ex-PG-147 states that Ogden was named EK-7 in Soviet service, but Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, p. 39, which includes access to Soviet-era records unavailable during the Cold War, reports that the ship's Soviet name was EK-10. As sources, Russell cites Department of the Navy, Ships Data: U.S. Naval Vessels Volume II, 1 January 1949, (NAVSHIPS 250-012), Washington, DC: Bureau of Ships, 1949; and Berezhnoi, S. S., Flot SSSR: Korabli i suda lendliza: Spravochnik ("The Soviet Navy: Lend-Lease Ships and Vessels: A Reference"), St. Petersburg, Russia: Belen, 1994.
^Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, pp 24–25.
^Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, p. 25.
^Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, pp. 27, 39.
^Russell, Richard A., Project Hula: Secret Soviet-American Cooperation in the War Against Japan, Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1997, ISBN0-945274-35-1, pp. 37–38, 39.