 All enlisted men served seven-year enlistments as volunteers.The navy operated a mix of patrol boats, torpedo boats, and small submersible boats transferred from the United States Navy and the navies of European countries.The Imperial Ethiopian Navys first ship was a former U.S. Navy "PC-1604"-class submarine chaser, ex-, transferred to Ethiopia on 2 January 1957 via a loan scheme involving Italy and transferred to Italy on 3 May 1959.