USS Winnemucca (PC-1145) was laid down on 2 June 1943 at the Defoe Shipbuilding Company in Bay City, Michigan; launched on 27 October 1943; and commissioned at New Orleans, Louisiana, on 1 June 1944, with Lieutenant J. L. Houget, USNR, in command. For the remainder of her active career, PC-1145 alternated between duty out of Pearl Harbor and service as an air search and rescue ship, at first based at Midway but later at Kwajalein, Johnston Island, Guam, and Samoa. After 1950, however, Guam and Samoa ceased to be duty stations for the submarine chaser and her sister ships.