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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Bullfinch (AM 66)



Call sign:
Nan - Easy - Baker - Yoke
Bullfinch Class Minesweeper:

  • Laid down 22 May 1937 as the M/V Villanova by Bath Iron Works, Bath, ME for F. J. O'Hara and Sons, Inc., Boston, MA (The last trawler built at Bath Iron Works for a United States owner)
  • Launched 21 October 1937
  • Delivered 1 November 1937
  • Acquired in 1939 by Trawler Villanova, Inc. of South Portland, ME
  • Acquired by the Navy 6 August 1940
  • Renamed Bullfinch 14 August 1940
  • Commissioned in ordinary 16 August 1940 and started conversion to a Minesweeper at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, VA
  • Placed in full commission as USS Bullfinch (AM 66), 22 October 1940
  • Conversion completed 22 April 1941
  • Decommissioned, 15 September 1944
  • Struck from the Navy Register 23 September 1944
  • Transferred to the Maritime Commission 28 August 1945
  • Acquired in 1945 by Francis J. O'Hara of Boston for use as a fishing boat and renamed Flying Cloud
  • Acquired in 1946 by the Atlantic Coast Fisheries Co. of Portland
  • Acquired in 1947 by Trawler Flying Cloud, Inc. of Boston
  • Acquired in 1976 by Acropolis, Inc. of Medford, MA
  • Acquired in 1979 by Frank Ganter of Dover, MA
  • Out of documentation in 1984
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 516 t.
  • Length 136'
  • Beam 24'
  • Draft 11' 2"
  • Speed 10 kts.
  • Armament: One 3"/50 dual purpose gun mount and two .50 cal. machine guns
  • Propulsion: One 700hp Fairbanks Morse diesel engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    USS Bullfinch (AM 66)
    Bullfinch 23k Namesake: Bullfinch is a European and American grosbeak Tommy Trampp
    Bullfinch 83k Russ Padden
    Bullfinch 136k USS Cardinal (AM-67), inboard, and Bullfinch, outboard at the Norfolk Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia, 31 October 1941. Note these minesweepers' dark paint scheme, with large white hull numbers and mine force insignia on their bows. Both have been fitted with 3"/50 deck guns
    National Archives photo 19-N-25946    		 Naval Historical Center
    Bullfinch 79k c. 1943
    U.S. Navy photo    		 Joe Radigan
    Bullfinch 74k 30 May 1943 Original photo: Gunter Krebs
    Replacement photo: Robert Hurst
    ex-Bullfinch
    Bullfinch 222k On the marine railway at the John H. Mathis Co,, Camden, N.J. Shipyard, in the autumn of 1945 being converted for return to merchant service
    Photos from Independence Seaport Museum, John Mathis collection (For educational and non-commercial use)    		 John Chiquoine
    Bullfinch 165k
    Bullfinch 155k
    Commanding Officers
    01LCDR John Alden Webster, USN - USNA Class of 1931
    Retired as Captain    		22 October 1940 - December 1941
    02LT Franklyn King Zinn, USNR - Awarded the Legion of Merit (1944)December 1942 - 1943
    03LT Robert Henry Nelson, Jr., USNRMarch 1943 - September 1943
    04LT Gordon B. Williams, USNRSeptember 1943 - June 1944
    05LTJG T. E. Fitzgerald, Jr., USNRJune 1944 - 15 September 1944
    Courtesy of Wolfgang Hechler, Ron Reeves and Joe Radigan
    View the Bullfinch (AM 66)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
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    This page created and maintained by Joseph M. Radigan (of blessed memory) & Michael Mohl
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