USS Sausalito (PF-4), was a patrol frigate in commission from 1944 to 1945 and from 1950 to 1952, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for Sausalito, California. She also served in the Soviet Navy as EK-16 and in the Republic of Korea Navy as ROKS Imchin (PF-66). Construction and commissioning Sausalito was laid down on 7 April 1943, as a patrol gunboat, PG-112, under a Maritime Commission (MARCOM) contract, MC hull No. 1422, at Permanente Metals Richmond Shipyard #4, Richmond, California; reclassified as a patrol frigate, PF-4, on 15 April 1943, she was launched on 20 July 1943, sponsored by Mrs. Richard Shaler, and commissioned on 4 March 1944. Service history U.S. Navy, World War II, 1944–1945 After shakedown, Sausalito arrived at Adak, Territory of Alaska, on 5 October 1944 for convoy escort duty in the Alaskan Sea Frontier. She performed these duties until – having been selected for transfer to the Soviet Navy in Project Hula, a secret program for the transfer of US Navy ships to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay, Alaska, in anticipation of the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan – she departed on 5 June 1945, for overhaul at Seattle, Washington, to prepare her for transfer. She then proceeded to Cold Bay and began training her new Soviet crew. Soviet Navy, 1945–1949 Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, Sausalito was decommissioned on 16 August 1945, at Cold Bay, and transferred to the Soviet Union, under Lend-Lease immediately along with her sister ships , , , , and . Commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, Sausalito was designated as a storozhevoi korabl ("escort ship") and renamed EK-16 in Soviet service. She soon departed Cold Bay, bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, in the Soviet Union, and served as a patrol vessel in the Soviet Far East. 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 Navy James 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-16 among them. Negotiations for the return of the ships were protracted, but on 1 November 1949 the Soviet Union