Description:Ship 2018
The BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20) is one of several Miguel Malvar class of Patrol Corvettes in service with the Philippine Navy. She was originally built as the USS Gayety (AM-239), an Admirable class minesweeper with a similar hull to the PCE-842-class patrol craft produced during World War II. Along with other ex-World War II veteran ships of the Philippine Navy, she is considered as one of the oldest active fighting ships in the world today.[3]
Commissioned in the US Navy as the USS Gayety (AM-239) in 1945, she was assigned in the Pacific theatre of operations, specifically around the Japanese home islands providing minefield sweeping and anti-submarine warfare patrols in the Ryukyus and off Okinawa. She suffered a near-miss from a 500-pound bomb and was damaged, although she was quickly put back to fighting shape. After the war she was decommissioned on June 1946 and placed under the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.
Gayety was recommissioned on 11 May 1951 as a training ship, and was again decommissioned on 1 March 1954, and re-entered Atlantic Reserve Fleet. As part of the reserves, she was reclassified as MSF-239 on 7 February 1955.[4][5] Republic of Vietnam Navy
She was then transferred to the Republic of Vietnam on 17 April 1962. She served the Vietnamese Navy as RVN Chi Lang II (HQ-08) up until her escape to the Philippines in 1975, together with other South Vietnamese Navy ships and their respective crew.[5][6] Philippine Navy
She was formally acquired by the Philippine Navy on 5 April 1976, and was commissioned into the Philippine Navy on 7 February 1977 and was renamed RPS Magat Salamat (PS-20).[1] She was renamed to BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20) in June 1980 using a new localized prefix.[7]
Between 1996 and 1997 the Magat Salamat underwent major overhaul, weapons and radar systems refit, and upgrade of communications gear.[8]
She is currently assigned with the Patrol Force of the Philippine Fleet,[9] under the jurisdiction of Naval Forces Eastern Mindanao.[10]
