USS Finch (AM-9) was a Lapwing-class minesweeper acquired by the U.S. Navy for the dangerous task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing.

Here she based for two months of duty removing the vast number of mines laid in the North Sea during World War I. Finch returned to Charleston on 29 November 1920, and on 3 January 1920 sailed for San Pedro, California, where from 1 March to 29 August she was in reduced commission.

Modernized, she sailed from San Francisco on 20 August 1921 for duty with the Asiatic Fleet, and for the next 20 years, served in the Philippines in the winter and out of the China base at Chefoo in the summer.

In 1941, she began work in intensive development exercises with submarine and mine groups in the Philippines, and as war came closer, spent December on patrol in the Taiwan Straits.

As the Japanese began aerial bombardment of bases in the Philippines, the Finch continued her task of sweeping for mines to keep the channel into the harbor open for incoming shipping.

Yeoman Pratt reported that machine gunners on board the Finch downed one Japanese aircraft during an air raid, and though the Captain congratulated them, he asked them not to repeat the feat so that they would not become a special target and be able to continue mine sweeping operations.