Posted from New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.
So today is approximately the day that my boat was launched. As far as we know it was launched in 1954 in New Orleans for the U.S. Army. Yes Army not Navy. The Army at that time had it’s own marine branch and Pathfinder was part of that.
Our ship (as far as we can tell was built in preparation for the second Korean war that fortunately did not happen. As a result it was put into reserve where it stayed for some time.
Here is a page listing all of the ships produced at that location including our T-509: http://shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/5small/inactive/higgins.htm
The point is an approximate location discovered from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgins_Industries