Baekdusan (PC-701), a submarine hunter, was Korea’s first warship. The former USS PC823 was purchased by the Navy on October 17, 1949, with money donated by naval officers and citizens of the United States. Reactivation work was undertaken by the Pearl Harbor Naval Ship in Hawaii. On June 25, 1950, the day on which the Korean War broke out, the ship spotted a North Korean naval ship in the Korea Strait and sank it the following day, in what turned out to be the first naval battle fought by the ROK Navy during the Korean War. It was retired from active service on July 1, 1959, and its mast was removed and installed in a quay at the naval academy in 1966. It is a valuable and highly symbolic relic of the country’s naval history.
