Philip K. Bauman was built in 1912 by M. M. Davis and Son, Solomons, Maryland, as a Menhaden fishing trawler, official number 210557.

[3] The vessel was purchased by the United States Navy from the Douglas Company for $110,000[4] on or about 28 May 1917 for service in World War I, designated SP-377, and commissioned as USS P. K. Bauman (SP-377) at Norfolk, Virginia, on 10 August 1917.

After one foundered in a storm all the trawlers were relieved of escort duties, had one gun and some ballast removed to reduce draft to one more suitable for the work, and assigned only to mine sweeping.

The squadron, commanded by Captain Thomas P. Magruder aboard his flagship, the armed yacht Wakiva II, departed Boston, Massachusetts, on 25 August 1917 for Provincetown, Massachusetts, then departed Provincetown on 26 August 1917 en route Brest, France.

[7][8][9] Listing badly, she was taken in tow by another of the former Menhaden trawler minesweepers Raymond J. Anderton, but eventually sank.