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The US Navy ship, '''USS Banning''', PCE 886 , was laid down on 29 March 1944 at Portland, Oregon, by the Albina Engine & Machine Works; launched on 10 July 1944; and commissioned at her builders’ yard on 31 May 1945, Lieutenant Eugene W. Stetson, Jr., USNR, in command.
Completed just 13 weeks before the Japanese capitulation, PCE 886 saw duty as a weather station ship in the Philippine Islands. After World War II ended, she continued to serve in the Philippines until she was transferred to Pearl Harbor in 1947. The patrol escort provided her weather data collection services in the Hawaiian area until August 1948 when she was reassigned to American Samoa. She plied Samoan waters for the next 14 months, carrying passengers and mail between the various islands of the group. In October of 1949, PCE 886 returned to the United States at Bremerton, Wash., and began preparations for deactivation. On 30 December 1949, the submarine chaser was decommissioned and berthed with the Astoria Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet.
