From: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol.VIII p 474

Worland

A town in Bates County, Mo., and the county seat of Washakie County, Wyo.

PCE--845 was laid down on 24 July 1943 at Chicago, Ill., by the Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing Co.; launched on 1 December 1943; and commissioned on 1 March 1944 at New Orleans, Lt. Glenn W. Morrow, USNR, in command.

Following shakedown, PCE--845 departed Miami, Fla., on 18 April, bound for Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, British West Indies. The patrol escort operated with Admiral Jonas I. Ingrams 4th Fleet, escorting coastal convoys between Port-of-Spain and Brazilian ports such as Recife, Bahia, Belem, and Rio de Janeiro until December. Departing Trinidad on the 7th, PCE--845 shaped a course for the Florida keys and a stint of training operations before departing Key West on 21 January 1945 and heading for the Pacific.

The escort vessel arrived at Hollandia, New Guinea, on 2 March, whence she was routed onward to the Philippines. Operating out of Mangarin Bay, Mindoro, she conducted escort missions and antisubmarine patrols to the western and southwestern islands of the Philippine Archipelago. In July, she began patrolling Leyte Gulf and continued the mission until V--J Day in mid-August.

Departing San Pedro Bay, Leyte, on the 15th, PCE-- 845 escorted the kamikaze-damaged destroyer Hugh W. Hadley (DD--774) to Hawaii, arriving at Pearl Harbor on 24 August. For the next two years, the escort vessel operated out of that base on air-sea rescue and weather patrols as a unit of Service Squadron 7.

On 30 August 1947, the small ship sailed for the mainland of the United States. Proceeding via San Diego and the Panama Canal, PCE--845 arrived at Algiers, La., on 2 October and was subsequently decommissioned at Galveston, Tex., on 22 December and laid up.

Reactivated three years later for service as a naval district training ship, she initially operated out of New Orleans, attached to the 8th Naval District, In this role, her mission occasionally took her to the Mexican port of Veracruz. Then, after proceeding up the Mississippi River late in 1950, PCE--845 was recommissioned at Chicago, III., on 11 December, for service on the Great Lakes for the 9th Naval District.

Over the next 14 years, the patrol craft made regular reserve training cruises on Lakes Superior and Michigan. On 15 February 1956, the ship was named Worland.

She departed Chicago on 6 April 1964, bound for the eastern seaboard. En route, she called at Milwaukee, Detroit, and Quebec before arriving at Philadelphia on 28 April. Decommissioned on 25 May 1964, Worland was assigned to the Philadelphia Group of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet.

Struck from the Navy list on 1 June 1964, Worland was subsequently acquired on 6 August 1964 by the Cape Fear Technical Institute of Wilmington, N.C., and renamed Advance II, commemorating the Confederate blockade runner Advance of Civil War days. She serves as a training and research ship in the marine technology program of the Cape Fear Technical Institute.