USS Bold (AM-424) - East Coast Operations

East Coast Operations

At the end of the first week in June 1954, Bold finally embarked upon her delayed shakedown cruise that she conducted off the New England coast. At the end of the summer of 1954, the minesweeper entered the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for five months of modifications and post-shakedown repairs. On 7 February 1955 near the end of the overhaul, Bold was reclassified an ocean minesweeper and redesignated MSO-424.

On 15 February 1955, after nearly a year and a half of active duty, the warship entered port at the home of the Atlantic Fleet Mine Force, Charleston, South Carolina, for the first time in her career. That spring, after three weeks of intensive training, Bold participated in her first annual minesweeping exercise. On 2 May, she stood out of Charleston in company with the other ships of Mine Division (MinDiv) 83 to embark on her first deployment to the Mediterranean Sea. She and her division mates arrived in Lisbon, Portugal, on 18 May and, soon thereafter, joined the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. During the ensuing four months, the minesweeper made port visits and conducted bilateral minesweeping exercises with units of the navies of Italy, Greece, and Spain. Bold concluded that tour of duty in the latter part of September and reentered Charleston, South Carolina, on 4 October.

After five weeks of the relative inactivity that usually follows a deployment, she steamed south early in November to enter the drydock of a civilian contractor at Jacksonville, Florida. When those repairs were completed in mid-December, Bold moved to the Naval Mine Defense Laboratory at Panama City, Florida, where she spent the first five months of 1956 assisting in the development of technology and tactics relative to mine warfare. In June, the minesweeper returned to Charleston where she began a four-month overhaul at the Charleston Naval Shipyard. She completed that repair period in October and embarked upon a schedule of training missions in the local operating area in preparation for deployment to the Mediterranean again in January 1957.