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. PC-1145 completed shakedown training in the Gulf of Mexico on 11 June and reported for duty to the Commander, Gulf Sea Frontier. For the next year, the submarine chaser plied the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic seaboard conducting anti-submarine patrols and escorting coastwise convoys, In the performance of those duties, the little warship ranged as far north as New York City and as far south as the Panama Canal Zone.