that each ship could carry two boats, whose motors were equipped with specially muffled exhausts for ultra-quiet running. They also removed one of the Oerlikon 20 mm cannon from amidships and installed a 2-pounder gun aft and two cal .50 machine guns on the flying bridge. The ships were christened Hitra (SC-718), Hessa (SC-683), and Vigra (SC-1061). Hitra and her sister vessels superseded the famous fleet of civilian fishing boats that had formerly run naval operations between Shetland and Norway. During the final two years of World War II the three ships performed a total of 114 missions to occupied Norway, and apart from one incident when a Canadian aircraft fired on Hessa, the voyages were uneventful and there were no casualties. For 43 of her 45 trips to Norway Hitra was under the command of Ingvald Eidsheim. Late in the war an observer from Admiral Stark's office wrote: Postwar After the war Hitra performed coast guard duties until 1953. All three submarine chasers were mothballed at Marvika and formally decommissioned in 1959. She seemingly ended her days in Karlskrona, Sweden when she sank after someone had opened the bottom valves. It was not until 1981, when the Soviet submarine U 137 (Whiskey on the rocks) ran aground, that S. Moen, the director of the Royal Norwegian Navy Museum in Horten saw the abandoned Hitra in a newspaper image. Subsequently, she was raised and shipped back to Norway, where she was restored to her original condition in 1983–1987. Today, while still under naval command, Hitra is a museum ship home ported at Haakonsvern, Bergen, touring the Norwegian coast in the summer months. See also Other ships built by Fisher Boat Works: MV Cape Pine USS SC-499 USS SC-500 Notes References 1943 ships Ships built in Detroit Ships transferred from the United States Navy to the Royal Norwegian Navy SC-497-class submarine chasers of the Royal Norwegian Navy World War II patrol vessels of Norway Museum ships in Norway