USS Coates (DE-685)

USS Coates (DE-685) was a Rudderow-class destroyer escort in the United States Navy during World War II and later in the 1950s and 1960s.

Coates was launched 12 December 1943 by Bethlehem Steel Company, Quincy, Massachusetts; sponsored by Mrs. A. M. Bledsoe, wife of Captain Bledsoe; commissioned 24 January 1944, Lieutenant W. S. Wills, USNR, in command; and reported to the Atlantic Fleet.

Coates served as a school ship for student officers and nucleus crews at Miami between 8 April 1944 and 15 September 1945, when she reported at Charleston, South Carolina for inactivation. Coates was placed out of commission in reserve 16 April 1946 at Green Cove Springs, Florida.

Coates was recommissioned 7 February 1951, and reported to her homeport, Norfolk, Virginia on 18 March. After coastwise operations and training, she sailed 9 July from Norfolk to Liverpool, Nova Scotia, on hunter-killer exercises, returning 27 July. Training in Cuban waters and local operations preceded assignment as training ship for Fleet Sonar School, Key West in the spring of 1952.

Coates sailed 26 August 1952 to join in North Atlantic Treaty Organization Operation Mainbrace, visiting the Firths of Clyde and Forth and Arendal, Norway, before returning home 11 October. Coates resumed local operations, training exercises off the Virginia Capes and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and took part in a midshipman cruise to Brazil in summer 1953. NATO exercises took her to Scotland and France from 12 July to 3 September 1954. She served as school ship at Key West early in 1957, and on 21 November 1957 was assigned to the 3rd Naval District as a Naval Reserve Training vessel, operating from New York City. Through 1963 Coates has conducted training cruises of various lengths in Long Island Sound, and to ports in the West Indies and along the east coast. Her base was changed from New York to New Haven, Connecticut on 19 September I960.

She was decommissioned on 30 January 1970 and struck from the Navy list the same day. On 19 September 1971, she was sunk as a target.