USS Marvel (AM-262) was an built for the United States Navy during World War II and in commission from 1944 to 1945. In 1945, she was transferred to the Soviet Union and then served in the Soviet Navy as T-272. The Soviets converted her into a naval trawler in 1948 and renamed her Passat. Construction and commissioning Marvel was laid down on 4 April 1943 at Lorain, Ohio, by the American Shipbuilding Company, launched on 31 July 1943, sponsored by Miss Naomi Gordan, and commissioned on 9 June 1944. Service history U.S. Navy, World War II, 1944-1945 Completing a brief shakedown at Little Creek, Virginia, Marvel got underway on 19 August 1944 for Naval Operating Base Bermuda. Into the mid-autumn of 1944, she operated from St. George's Bay, Bermuda, sweeping for mines and conducting antisubmarine patrols to ensure safe passage into the eastern terminus of the southern transatlantic convoy route. She returned to Virginia on 9 November 1944, and for the next two months conducted similar patrols in the Hampton Roads area. On 17 January 1945, Marvel weighed anchor and began a two-and-a-half month cruise to Kodiak, Territory of Alaska. Steaming via Coco Solo in the Panama Canal Zone, San Diego, California, and Seattle, Washington, she arrived at Kodiak on 31 March 1945. On 2 April 1945 she departed for the Shumagin Islands, arriving at Baralof Bay on 3 April 1945. There she conducted local exercises. Selected for transfer to the Soviet Navy in Project Hula – a secret program for the transfer of U.S. Navy ships to the Soviet Navy at Cold Bay, Alaska, in anticipation of the Soviet Union joining the war against Japan – Marvel proceeded to Cold Bay in the spring of 1945 to begin familiarization training of her new Soviet crew. Soviet Navy, 1945-1960 Following the completion of training for her Soviet crew, Marvel 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-274 in Soviet service. 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