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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Mainstay (MSF 261)
ex-AM-261



Call sign:
November - Golf - Whiskey - Lima
Admirable Class Minesweeper:

  • Laid down 10 April 1943 by the American Shipbuilding Co., Lorain, OH
  • Launched 31 July 1943
  • Commissioned USS Mainstay (AM 261), 24 April 1944
  • Decommissioned 6 November 1946 at Bremerton, WA
  • Placed in service, caretaker status in July 1947 at Yokosuka, Japan
  • Placed "in service" 28 November 1947
  • Placed "out of service" 16 April 1948
  • Recommissioned 1 March 1949
  • Decommissioned 10 January 1950 at Yokosuka, Japan
  • Recommissioned 12 December 1950
  • Decommissioned 21 September 1954 at Long Beach, CA and entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet at San Diego, CA
  • Reclassified as a Fleet Minesweeper (Steel Hull), MSF-261, 7 February 1955
  • Struck from the Naval Register 1 December 1959
  • Sold for scrap 8 August 1960 to National Metal and Steel Corp. of Terminal Island, CA.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 945 t.(fl)
  • Length 184' 6"
  • Beam 33'
  • Draft 9' 9"
  • Speed 14.8 kts.
  • Complement 104
  • Armament: One 3"/50 dual purpose mount, one twin 40mm gun mount, six 20mm gun mounts, one depth charge projector (hedgehog), four depth charge projectors (K-guns) and two depth charge tracks
  • Propulsion: Two 1,710shp Cooper Bessemer GSB-8 diesel engines, National Supply Co. single reduction gear, two shafts.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Mainstay 89k Method (AM 264) and Mainstay under construction Historical Collections of the Great Lakes
    Mainstay 238k Norfolk, VA, 1942. Hotel Chamberlin at Hampton, VA
    in background.    		 Jim Tomlinson, whose father, Charles Tomlinson served in Mainstay.
    Mainstay 258k Norfolk, VA, 1942.
    Mainstay 246k
    Commanding Officers
    01LT Henry B. Clark, USN24 April 1944
    ??LT D. H. Dane, USN28 November 1947
    ??LTJG John S. Grow, USN1 March 1949
    05LT Thomas Emmett Reynolds, USN12 December 1950
    Courtesy Wolfgang Hechler, Ron Reeves and Joe Radigan
    View the Mainstay (MSF 261)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
    Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
    Naval Minewarfare Association
    Association of Minemen
    Back To The Main Photo Index Back To the Mine Warfare Ship Photo Index Back to the Minesweeper (AM) Photo Index
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    This page created and maintained by Joseph M. Radigan
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