USS Bull (DE-693)

Lu Shan (PF-36), ex-Bull (DE-693)
History
United States
Name:	USS Bull (DE-693)
Namesake:	Richard Bull
Ordered:	9 October 1942
Builder:	Defoe Shipbuilding Company, Bay City, Michigan
Laid down:	15 December 1942 as Buckley-class destroyer escort
Launched:	23 March 1943
Commissioned:	12 August 1943
Reclassified:	APD-78, 31 July 1944
Decommissioned:	5 June 1947
Struck:	15 June 1966
Honors and awards:	3 battle stars (World War II)
Fate:	Sold to Taiwan, 12 July 1966
History
Taiwan
Name:	ROCS Lu Shan (DE-36)
Acquired:	12 July 1966
Reclassified:	PF-36
Reclassified:	PF-821
Reclassified:	PF-836
Struck:	May 1995
Fate:	Broken up for scrap
General characteristics
Class and type:	Buckley-class destroyer escort
Displacement:	1,400 long tons (1,422 t) light 1,673 long tons (1,700 t) standard
Length:	306 ft (93 m)
Beam:	37 ft (11 m)
Draft:	13 ft 6 in (4.11 m)
Propulsion:	2 × boilers General Electric turbo-electric drive 12,000 shp (8.9 MW) 2 × solid manganese-bronze 3,600 lb (1,600 kg) 3-bladed propellers, 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) diameter, 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) pitch 2 × rudders
Speed:	24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph)
Boats & landing craft carried:	4 × LCVP landing craft (as APD)
Capacity:	162 troops (as APD)
Complement:	186
Armament:	As DE : 3 × 3"/50 caliber guns 1 × quad 1.1"/75 caliber gun 8 × single 20 mm guns 1 × triple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes 8 × K-gun depth charge projectors 2 × depth charge tracks As APD : 1 × 5"/38 caliber gun 3 × twin 40 mm guns 6 × single 20 mm guns 2 × depth charge tracks

USS Bull (DE-693/APD-78) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort, later converted to a Charles Lawrence-class high speed transport. She was the second Navy ship named after Lieutenant (junior grade) Richard Bull (1914–1942), a naval aviator who was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Bull was the first of many destroyer escorts built at Defoe Shipbuilding Company, of Bay City, Michigan. The hull of Bull was constructed in the conventional fashion while the jigs and fittings were constructed in order to build the rest of the ships in a new upside-down method that Defoe pioneered. Bull was launched on 25 March 1943 at the Defoe yard; sponsored by Mrs. Ruth P. Bull, widow of Lt.(jg) Bull. She was commissioned 12 August 1943, Lt. D. W. Farnham, USNR, in command.

Following her shakedown training out of Bermuda, Bull escorted the Army transport USAT George Washington to Norfolk, Virginia, and then continued on to Boston, Massachusetts, where she arrived on 4 October 1943 for post-shakedown availability. The destroyer escort touched briefly at New York City; proceeded thence to Curaçao, in the Dutch West Indies, and then headed across the Atlantic to Derry, Northern Ireland, on her first convoy-escort mission. Following her return to New York on 9 December, Bull operated out of Cape Cod Bay through the end of 1943 with Fleet Air, Atlantic, towing targets used by Navy planes practicing radar and dive-bombing tactics.