The destroyer escort USS Frybarger was launched at the Defoe Shipbuilding Company, Bay City, Michigan on February 25, 1944, and commissioned with the USNR on the 18th of May, of the same year. After shakedown and training, she headed for Bizerte, with a convoy supplying the allied troops in North Africa. With her second North African voyage ending in November 1944, she refitted for Pacific duty and crossed the Panama Canal in December of the same year, to reach Manus in January 1945. She saw relatively little incident; escorting cargo ships out of Manila and other Philippines-area ports, although one of her trips takes her to the active warzone of Okinawa. She participated in the re-occupation of China and Korea from September 3, 1945, until November. Placed in reserve from 1947 onward, she was recommissioned and upgraded into a control escort vessel (DEC-705) three years later. The USS Fryberg will take part in various exercises throughout the following months and join the 7th Fleet for a short stint in the Far East during the Korean conflict. None of the improvements she received throughout her life removed any of the harmful asbestos onboard, however. This could be found virtually everywhere: engine room, pump room, boiler room, lining her pipes, electronics, and fuse boxes; even the walls mixed with paint and insulation.
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