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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1954 period, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

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Warship Wednesday (on a Thursday) 19 February 2026: Plywood Warrior

Above we see the plucky Korean War-era 173-foot Acme-class ocean-going minesweeper leader USS Adroit (MSO-509) underway during mine-clearing operations in the Gulf during Operation Desert Storm in February 1991, flag flying, with Zodiacs, Otters, and paravanes ready, as Bluejackets man the .50s.

Some 35 years ago this week, the little 34-year-old Adroit would come to the urgent assistance of the top-of-the-line Aeigis cruiser USS Princeton (CG-59), which found herself in the midst of an Iraqi minefield in the worst way imaginable.

Adroit came to work– as she always had.

The Agiles & Acmes

With the Navy’s hard-earned lessons in mine warfare in WWII (more than 70 USN ships sunk by mines) and Korea (five sunk: USS Magpie, Pirate, Pledge, Sarsi and Partridge), the brass in the early 1950s decided to design and build a new class of advanced ocean-going but shallow draft minesweepers to augment and eventually replace the flotillas of 1940s-built steel-hulled 221-foot Auk-class and 184-foot Admirable class minebusters.

The new design, a handy 850-tonner, was shorter than either previous classes, running just 172 feet overall. Beamy at 35 feet, they could operate in as little as 10 feet of seawater.

Their shallow draft (10 feet in seawater) made them ideal for getting around littorals as well as going to some out-of-the-way locales that rarely see Naval vessels. USS Leader (MSO-490) and Excel (MSO 439) became the first U.S. warships ever to visit the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh when they completed the 180-mile transit up the Mekong River on 27 August 1961, a feat not repeated until 2007. USS Vital (MSO-474) ascended the Mississippi River in May 1967 to participate in the Cotton Carnival at Memphis, Tennessee.

Whereas the Auks and Admiralbles were outfitted as PCs or DEs, complete with 3″/50s, a decent AAA battery, and lots of depth charges and even Hedgehog ASW devices, the Agiles and Acmes were almost unarmed. Their design allowed for a single 40mm L60 Bofors forward and four .50 cals with a small arms locker accessible via the captain’s stateroom. Less steel and all that. Plus, it was thought that the Navy had enough DEs and DDs to not need minesweepers to clock in to bust subs, escort convoys, and shoot down planes.

As one would expect, due to their role, these new minesweepers, the Agiles, were to be wooden-hulled (not steel like Auk and Admirable), with even non-ferrous steel used in their four (often cranky) Packard 760shp V-16 ID1700 diesel engines– a type also used in the new coastal sweepers (MSCs). Some of the class were later given nonmagnetic General Motors engines to replace especially troublesome Packards. Electrical power for the ship came from a Packard V-8 240kw ship’s service generator, while the mine hammers and winches used two GM 6-71s (one 100kw, the other 60kw).

To differentiate them from the AM-hull numbered Auks and Admirable, the new class was reclassified to the new MSO (Minesweeper, Ocean, Non-Magnetic) in 1955. Bronze and stainless (non-magnetic) steel fittings, with automatic degaussing, were fitted, as well as electrical insulators in internal piping, lifelines, and stays.

Their construction at the time was novel, with 90 percent of the completed ship– including the keel, frame, decking, and rudder– being made from laminated oak and fir “sandwiches” with the biggest piece of continuous wood being 16-foot long 7/8-inch thick oak planks.

From a July 1953 Popular Mechanics article on the subject:

They were very maneuverable, due to controllable pitch propellers– one of the earliest CRP installations in the Navy– and the class leader would be appropriately named USS Agile.

They were made to carry the new AN/UQS-1 mine-locating sonar, developed and evaluated in the early 1950s by the Navy’s Mine Defense Laboratory in Panama City. This 100 kHz short-range high-definition mine location sonar featured a 1.0 ms pulse and 2.0º horizontal resolution, allowing it to detect bottom mines (most of the time) at ranges up to a few hundred yards during tests. While that sounds primitive now, it was cutting-edge for the time and would be the primary sonar of these boats throughout the 1950s and well into the 1960s (some for longer than that). A SPS-53 surface search radar was on her mast.

Thus equipped, they could mechanically sweep moored mines with Oropesa (“O” Type) gear, magnetic mines with a magnetic “Tail” supplied by three 2500 ampere mine sweeping generators, and acoustic mines by using Mk4 (V) and Mk 5 magnetic as well as Mk6 (B) acoustic hammers. Two giant new XMAP pressure sweeping caissons could be towed, a funky array that was only in use for eight years.

The 53 Agiles, at $3.5 million a pop, were built out rapidly by 1958 at 14 yards around the country (Luders, Bellingham, Boward, Burger, Martinac, Higgins, Hiltebrant, etc.) that specialized in wooden vessels– although two were built at Newport Naval Shipyard. In addition to this, 15 were built for France, four for Portugal, six for Belgium, two for Norway, one for Uruguay, four for Italy, and six for the Netherlands. The design was truly an international best-seller, and in some cases, the last hurrah for several of these small wooden boat yards.

In 1954, the U.S. still had 57 Admirables and 59 Auks on the Navy List– even after giving away dozens to allies and reclassing others to roles such as survey and torpedo research. This soon changed as the Agiles entered the fleet. By 1967, only 28 Auks and 11 Admirable remained– and they were all in the Reserve Fleet.

But what of the Acme class?

The secret to these four follow-on vessels (Acme, Adroit, Advance, and Affray) was that they were very close copies of the Agiles, listed officially as being a foot longer and 30 tons heavier. They were also fitted with (austere) flagship facilities to operate as minesweeper flotilla leaders with a commodore aboard if needed, controlling a four-ship Mine Division of 300~ men. They also had slightly longer legs, capable of carrying 50 tons of fuel rather than the 46 on the Agiles, which gave them a nominal range of 3,000nm rather than 2,400 in the earlier ships.

The four-pack was built side-by-side at Boothbay Harbor, Maine, by Frank L. Sample, Jr., Inc., between November 1954 and December 1958.

The Sample yard had previously built a dozen 278-ton YMS coastal minesweepers for the Navy during WWII, as well as three 390-ton MSCs for the French in 1953, so at least they had experience.

Furthering the wooden-hulled MSO flotilla leader concept, after the Acmes, the Navy also ordered three larger (191-foot, 963-ton) Ability class sweepers from Petersen in Wisconsin as part of the 1955 Program.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

Meet Adroit

Our subject is at least the third such warship in U.S. Navy service, with the first being a 147-foot steam yacht taken up from service in 1917. Added to the Naval List as USS Adroit (SP-248), but never seeing active service as she was “found to be highly unseaworthy and of extremely short cruising range,” she was returned to her owner with a “thanks, anyway” in April 1918.

The second Adroit, and first commissioned by the Navy, was the class leader of a group of 18 173-foot PC-461-class submarine chasers that were completed, with minor modifications, as minesweepers. As such, USS Adroit (AM-82) entered service in 1942 and began operations late that year with Destroyer Squadron 12 on antisubmarine patrols off Noumea.

This WWII-era Adroit escorted convoys to Guadalcanal, Espiritu Santo and Efate, New Hebrides; Noumea, New Caledonia; Auckland, New Zealand; Tarawa, Gilbert Islands; and Manus, Admiralty Islands before her name was canceled and she was designated a sub-chaser proper, dubbed simply, PC-1586. She earned a single battle star, was decommissioned three months after VJ-Day, and was sold for scrap in 1948.

Our subject, the third USS Adroit, was laid down at Frank Sample’s on 18 November 1954, launched 20 August 1955, and commissioned 4 March 1957, one of the last of the Navy’s “plywood warriors.”

Her first skipper was LCDR Joseph G. Nemetz, USN, a WWII veteran and career officer.

Cold War service

Post shakedown and availibilty, Adroit spent nearly two decades in the active Atlantic Fleet Mine Force (MINELANT), operating in a series of excercises and training evolutions based out of Charleston while also spending stints at the disposal of the Naval School of Mine Warfare (co-located in Charleston) and the Mine Lab in Pensacola to both train eager new officers and ratings and test experimental new gear.

She likewise frequently served as the flagship for MineDiv 44 (and, after 1971, MineDiv 121) with an embarked commodore aboard.

On the small MSOs, life was different, as noted in ‘Damn the Torpedoes, Naval Mine Countermeasures, 1777-1991.”

For young officers and enlisted men in the late 1950s and early 1960s, assignment to the new MCM force provided an unusual experience in both seamanship and leadership. Command came early, and the career advancement possible with MCM ship command enticed some of the most promising graduates of the destroyer force schools into the new mine force for at least one command tour. Young lieutenants obtained command of MSCs; lieutenants and lieutenant commanders captained MSOs; ensigns served early tours as department heads; and lieutenants (junior grade) served as executive officers. Senior enlisted men who commanded MSBs and smaller vessels often advanced into the MCM officer community through such experience.

Because the establishment of minesweeping divisions, squadrons, and flotillas provided MCM billets for commanders and captains, and because of the variety of MCM vessels, shore station assignments, and missions, it was actually possible for a brief time for an officer or an enlisted man to rise within the mine force to the rank of captain.

Everything that had to be done on a big ship also had to be done on a small one, and the expanded MCM force became a hands-on training school for a whole generation of naval officers who exercised command at an early age. Officers assigned to the MSCs and MSOs from the active duty destroyer force sometimes arrived with little or no training in mine warfare and began operating immediately. Junior officers, many of them ensigns right out of school, often had good technical training from the mine warfare school but lacked basic shipboard experience. Well-trained enlisted men, both active duty and reserves, made up the core of the MCM force and usually taught their officers the essentials of minesweeping and hunting on the spot.

There were, of course, lots of exceptions to Adroit’s peacetime minework.

She made a trio of tense Sixth Fleet deployments to the Mediterranean: May-October 1958, 27 September 1961–March 1962, and 15 June–8 November 1965, often calling at some out-of-the-way ports due to her small size.

Adroit loaded ammo and helped guard ports in the Norfolk and Hampton Roads area during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

She clocked in to support the space program in 1963 (Mercury-Atlas 9 “Faith 7”) and 1972 (Apollo 17 “America/Challenger”).

Adroit’s advanced sonar proved key while searching for “lost USAF equipment” off the Bahamas in 1963, a missing general aviation aircraft off the Florida Keys in 1969, a lost LCU near Onslow Beach in 1970, a USN Kaman S2F Seasprite (BuNo. 149745) with lost aircrew aboard off Norfolk in 1975, worked with Naval Underwater Systems Command to locate and retrieve a valuable piece of underwater equipment” off the East Coast in 1976; recovered from 110 feet, a brand-new USN F-14A Tomcat (BuNo 160674) ditched off Shinnecock, New York in 1981 (without loss) and discovered thouroughly wrecked by Adroit in 160 feet, and an uncessceful search for a lost Marine CH-46 Sea Knight in the vicinity of Chesapeake Light in 1983. She made up for the latter by finding downed aircraft off the North Carolina coast in 1985. Hey, 4:5 on missing aircraft isn’t bad.

She was also involved in attempts to rescue those at peril on the sea, including roaming the Florida Strait after the mysterious disappearance of the tanker SS Marine Sulphur Queen, lost between  Beaumont, Texas, and Norfolk in 1963. That ship and the 39 souls aboard are still unaccounted for. She made a similarly fruitless search for the six men aboard the motor towing vessel Marjorie McCallister, which was lost battling heavy seas approximately off Cape Lookout in 1969.

A modernization overhaul at Detyens (14 March–26 August 1969) saw her first-generation mine sonar swapped out for the new AN/SQQ-14 variable depth sonar on a hull-retractable rod. As additional space on the foc’sle was needed for installation of the SQQ-14 cabling and the sonar lift, the WWII-era 40mm Bofors bow gun was landed for good, although a gun tub was installed, allowing a M68 20mm cannon if needed, but usually just used for an extra .50 cal.

Adroit transitioned from active duty to working naval reserve training duty in 1973, shifting homeport from Charleston to the NETC in Newport, Rhode Island, and downgrading to a half (active) crew. This brought a transfer to MineRon 121, and a five-month refit at Munro in Chelsea that added a new aqueous foam (light water) firefighting system, replaced both shafts, remodeled the mess decks, and recaulked the decks. After that, she got busy running reservists to sea for their annual active duty training and other ancillary duties alternating with assorted mine countermeasures exercises with divers and EOD dets.

Sister Affray pulled a similar downshift to become an NRF minesweeper based in Portland, Maine, at the time, leaving just Acme and Advance from the class on active duty in the Pacific.

The active ships are slightly undermanned by crews of 72 to 76 officers and enlisted men, whereas the NRF reserve training ships generally had a crew of 3 officers and 36 enlisted active Navy personnel, plus 2 officers and 29 enlisted reservists. Wartime mobilisation complement was 6 officers and 80 enlisted men for the modernized MSOs.

Meanwhile, in the Western Pacific, 10 MSOs were part of the Seventh Fleet’s Mine Countermeasures Force (Task Force 78), led by RADM Brian McCauley, during Operation End Sweep– removing mines and airdropped Mark 36 Destructors laid by the U.S. in Haiphong Harbor in North Vietnam and other waterways in the first part of 1973. Speaking of Vietnam, Adroit’s sister Acme made three tours off Southeast Asia during the conflict, earning two battle stars while Advance earned five stars.

By 1974, as the U.S. pulled back from Vietnam, the Navy had the four Acmes (two in NRF duty), had disposed of the larger Ability class MCM flotilla leaders as well as the older Admirables and Auks (the final 29 stricken in 1972 and quickly given away), and was down to just 40 Agiles, which were approaching mid-life. Of the surviving Agiles, 10 were in active commission (MSO 433, 437, 442, 443, 445, 446, 448, 449, 456, and 490), 14 were NRF’d  (MSO 427-431, 438-441, 455, 464, 488, 489, 492), and 16 were decommissioned to the reserve fleet. For those keeping count, that is just 12 MSOs left active, 16 NRF’d, and 16 mothballed– 44 in all. The count continued to be whittled down, with Acme and Advance disposed of in 1977.

The only other seagoing MCM assets owned by the Navy at the time were 13 138-foot wooden-hulled Bluebird-class MSCs in the NRF program, the 5,800-ton mine launch-carrying USS Ozark (MCS-2), which had been laid up in 1970, the 15,000-ton Styrofoam-filled converted Liberty ship MSS-1 (“minesweeper, special”), which was also laid up, and two Cove-class 105-foot inshore minsweepers used for research. Five WWII landing ships, the USS Osage (LSV-3),  Saugus (LSV-4), Monitor (LSV-5), Orleans Parish (LST-1069), and Epping Forest (LSD-4), which were given similar conversions as Ozark to mine countermeasures support ships and designated MCS-3 through MCS-7, respectively, were all stricken and disposed of by 1974. Plans for an improved, wooden hull MSO-523-class were shelved. MCM in the Navy once again became a backwater.

Anywho, back to our ship:

In 1980, she had a great 360-degree photoshoot, likely via helicopter off Virginia while on a summer reservist cruise.

During a year-long $5.5 million overhaul at Brambleton Shipyard (21 September 1987–29 August 1988), the old Packard engines were removed and replaced with new aluminum block Waukesha diesels. New sweep gear to include a pair of PAP-104 cable-guided undersea tools was added, as was accommodation for clearance divers and two Zodiac inflatables powered by 40hp outboards. She also lost her 20mm gun tub installation. She also received a Precise Integrated Shipboard System (PINS) nav system, early GPS, and began using early remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), notably Super Sea Rover.

By this time, the Lehman/Reagan 600 Ship Navy ™ had included two new classes of mine warfare ships, the 14 224-foot fiberglass-encased wood-laminate Avenger-class MCMs featuring the advanced third-gen AN/SQQ-32 mine sonar (tied to AN/UYK-44 computers to classify and detect mines), augmented by a dozen all-fiberglass 188-foot Osprey-class coastal mine hunters (MHCs). However, the Navy had to make do with the old MSOs for a bit longer until the new ships arrived in force.

By this time, the entire Navy MCM force only had 20 modernized Korean War-era MSOs (18 Agiles, 2 Acmes) spread across both the active and the reserve fleet, 21 RH-53D helicopters, and 7 57-foot MSBs. The first MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters began arriving in late 1986, and USS Avenger— the first new oceangoing American minesweeper since 1958– was commissioned in 1987.

We finally got real mines to sweep (kinda)

The Gulf Tanker War between Saddam’s Iraq and fundamentalist Iran led to Operation Earnest Will, the first overseas deployment of U.S. mine countermeasures forces since the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Shipping out for the Persian Gulf MCMGRUCO between November 1987 and March 1989 were six Agiles: USS Conquest (MSO-488), Enhance (MSO-437), Esteem (MSO-438), Fearless (MSO-442), Inflict (MSO-456), and Illusive (MSO-448).

While Adroit remained stateside– still in her modernization and post-delivery workup period– she was used to train Silver and Gold Crews replacement crews for duty in the Persian Gulf. While a caretaker crew remained on board, the Silver crew departed in February 1988 to take over the forward-deployed near-sister Fortify (MSO-446), while that ship’s Blue Crew returned from their deployment on board Inflict (MSO-456). 

Within the first 18 months of Persian Gulf minesweeping operations, the MSOs accounted for over 50 Iranian-laid Great War-designed Russian M08 moored mines, cleared three major minefields, and checked swept convoy racks throughout the Gulf. Iranian minelaying was also given a setback in the adjacent and very kinetic Operation Praying Mantis in April 1988 after the mining of the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts, paving the way for the MSOs to head back home.

War, for real

When Saddam ran over the Kuwaiti border and claimed the country as a lost province in August 1990, the resulting Desert Shield operation kicked off in overdrive, and the Navy knew it would need some serious MCM muscle.

While the Iranians had used elderly Russian contact mines during the Tanker War which were easily tracked and defeated, the Iraqis had some very modern mines including the potbellied LUGM-145 contact mine, the new Soviet-designed UDM magnetic influence mine, the Sigeel-400, the Korean War-era Soviet KMD500 magnetic influence bottom mine with its keel-breaking 700-pound warhead, and the sneaky little Italian Manta MN-103 acoustic bottom mine.

Whereas the Earnest Will MSOs had taken months to get to the theatre back in 1987-88 (three MSOs were towed 10,000 miles by the salvage ship USS Grapple for eight weeks!), the newly commissoned USS Avenger (MCM-1) and three MSOs, our Adroit along with Agile half-sisters Impervious (MSO-449), and Leader (MSO-490), were immediately sealifted to the Persian Gulf aboad the Dutch heavy lift ship SS Super Servant III.

More than 20 Navy EOD teams were also deployed along with the MH-53E Sea Dragons of Mine Countermeasures Helicopter Squadron 14, forming USMCMG, joining Allied minesweepers from Saudi Arabia, Great Britain, and Kuwait.

In January 1991, Adroit’s initial Blue crew was rotated stateside, replaced by a Silver crew from the Exploit, led by LCDR William Flemming Barns (NROTC ’75).

Beginning its task of sweeping five lines of mines east of the Kuwaiti coastline– containing some 1,270 of the devices– when Desert Storm kicked off, it was slow going for all involved. Some 35 years ago this week, the USMCMG flag, the old USS Tripoli (LPH-10), struck a LUGM, blowing a 16-by-25-foot hole in her hull and losing a third of her fuel in the process. Just three hours later, the cruiser Princeton hit another mine, this time a dreaded Manta, which almost ripped her fantail from her hull.

Impervious, Leader, and Avenger searched for additional mines in the area while Adroit carefully led the salvage tug USS Beaufort (ATS-2) through the uncharted mines toward Princeton, which took her in tow, Adroit steaming at the “Point” marking mines with flares in the dark.

As detailed by Captain E. B. Hontz, Princeton’s skipper, in a July 1991 Proceedings piece:

As the day wore on, I was concerned about drifting around in the minefield. So I made the decision to have Beaufort take us in tow since our maneuverability with one shaft at three, four, five, or even six knots was not good. Once underway, we moved slowly west with Adroit leading, searching for mines.”

The crew remained at general quarters as a precaution should we take another mine strike. [The] Beaufort continued to twist and turn, pulling us around the mines located by the Naval Re­serve ship Adroit and marked by flares. Throughout the night, Adroit continued to lay flares. Near early morning, having run out of flares, she began marking the mines with chem-lights tied together. The teamwork of the Adroit and Beaufort was superb.

I felt the life of my ship and my men were in the hands of this small minesweeper’s commanding officer and his crew. I di­rected the Adroit to stay with us. I trusted him, and I didn’t want to let him go until I was clear of the danger area. [The] Princeton was … out of the war.

The Americans, joined by allies from around the world, continued to sweep mines and UXO across the Gulf and five Kuwaiti ports through the end of May 1991.

Their mission accomplished, Adroit, Impervious, and Leader returned on board SS Super Servant IV to Norfolk on 14 November 1991.

Decommissioned 12 December 1991– just months after guiding Princeton— Adroit was laid up at Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Portsmouth, and struck from the Navy Register on 8 May 1992. Affray held on for another year. The last four Agiles in U.S. service were decommissioned three years later.

Sold for scrap on 15 August 1994 by DRMO to Wilmington Resources, Inc. of Wilmington, North Carolina, for $44,950, she was removed from the Reserve Fleet three days later, and her scrapping was completed by the following May. By 2000, her last remaining sister, Affray, had been scrapped as well.

Adroit had an amazing 26 skippers during her storied 34 years on active duty.

Epilogue

Adroit’s deck logs from the 1950s-70s are largely digitized and available online via the NARA. 

The Navy MSO Association (“Wooden Ships, Iron Men”) was once very vibrant, but it seems their website went offline circa 2020. The Association of Minemen (AOM) is likewise dormant. The Mine Warfare Association (MINWARA), formed in 1995, continues its legacy. albeit with fewer and fewer MSO-era mine warriors these days.

The only MSO preserved in the U.S., the Agile-class USS Lucid (MSO-458) at the Stockton Maritime Museum, also has parts salvaged from ex-USS Implicit, and ex-Pluck (MSO-464). Please visit her if you get the chance.

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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