USS Bold (AM-424) - Tour of Duty With The Sixth Fleet

Tour of Duty With The Sixth Fleet

She began 1967 with type training carried out in cooperation with her colleagues of MinDiv 83. Between early February and mid-March, the minesweeper underwent repairs at the Jacksonville Shipyard in Charleston in preparation for another tour of duty with the 6th Fleet. Bold embarked upon that deployment on 30 March. She and her division mates arrived at Gibraltar on 16 April and became elements of Task Unit (TU) 61.7.3. For almost five months the minesweeper ranged the length and breadth of the Mediterranean Sea, participating in a variety of exercises both multinational and unilateral in character. When not so engaged, the warship made liberty calls and goodwill visits to ports throughout the Mediterranean. Following turnover formalities at Rota, Spain, Bold headed back to the United States on 2 September. She returned to Charleston on the 16th and stood down for about a month to allow her crew ample opportunity to take post-deployment leave.

Bold resumed local operations late in October but did not really accelerate to a normal pace until the beginning of 1968 when she began service as a training platform for the Mine Warfare School. She alternated duty as a school ship with periods of type training and independent ship's exercises during the first four months of 1968. On 6 May, the minesweeper entered Detyen's Shipyard at Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, for an 11-week overhaul. Bold left the yard on 22 July and took up normal operations at the end of the month. Early in October while carrying out a mission in support of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory Test Facility at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, she suffered damage to her main propulsion plant that put her in the Jacksonville Shipyard for two months. Bold returned to active service in December just in time to put to sea with USS Bulwark (MSO-425) on the 20th to search for an aircraft that had gone down at sea off the Virginia Capes. The search proved unsuccessful, and she returned to Charleston late Christmas Eve.

The minesweeper began 1969 with refresher training out of her home port. In February, she assisted Atlantic Fleet destroyers in quality assurance testing on their weapons systems. Type training conducted along the coasts of South Carolina and Florida occupied the month of March. On 1 May, Bold departed Charleston with MinDiv 83 bound for a month of exercises in the Caribbean Sea codenamed Operation Halcon Vista IV. Upon her return to Charleston at the beginning of June, she resumed local operations. During the fall, she underwent an interim drydocking at the Jacksonville Shipyard and participated in quality assurance testing on weapons for Atlantic Fleet destroyers once again.