IDing a WWII Ship

     Longtime readers of this brand new blog will recall that I once promised a post about a World War II U.S. Navy submarine chaser. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) I was sidetracked by my encounter with Bill, then by an old photo album I received for Christmas. But today I hope to begin to right that long forgotten wrong.

     I'm still researching the history of the ship in this image (which I bought for $1 at a store called Cool Stuff Weird Things). But in order to get to that point, I had to first figure out the class (type) of ship using only the clues available in the image. Clearly the number "1277" jumps out as a potential lead, so that's where I decided to start my search...