Method was decommissioned on 21 May 1945 at Cold Bay and transferred to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease immediately. Also commissioned into the Soviet Navy immediately, she was designated as a ("minesweeper") and renamed T-276 in Soviet service. Allocated to the Pacific Fleet (Тихо Oкеанский флот - TOF), she soon departed Cold Bay bound for Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky in the Soviet Union, where she served 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, and 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. Deteriorating relations between the two countries as the Cold War broke out led to protracted negotiations over the ships, and by the mid-1950s the U.S. Navy found it too expensive to bring home ships that had become worthless to it anyway. Many ex-American ships were merely administratively "returned" to the United States and instead sold for scrap in the Soviet Union, while the U.S. Navy did not seriously pursue the return of others because it viewed them as no longer worth the cost of recovery. The Soviet Union never returned Method to the United States, instead transferring her to "Glavpromorrybprom" in 1948 for conversion to the whalecatcher Purga. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy reclassified Method as a "fleet minesweeper" (MSF) and redesignated her MSF-264 on 7 February 1955. Disposal The ship was scrapped in 1960. Unaware of her fate, the U.S. Navy kept Method on its Naval Vessel Register until finally striking her on 1 January 1983. References NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive - Method (MSF 264) - ex-AM-264 See also Purga as a whalecatcher Admirable-class minesweepers Ships built in Lorain, Ohio 1943 ships World War II minesweepers of the United States Admirable-class minesweepers of the Soviet Navy World War II minesweepers of the Soviet Union Cold War minesweepers of the Soviet Union Trawlers of the Soviet Navy Cold War patrol vessels of the Soviet Union Ships transferred under Project Hula