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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive
Courtesy of Mike Smolinski

Fidelity (MSO 443)
ex-AM-433



Call sign:
November - Lima - Zulu - Lima
Aggressive Class Minesweeper: Laid down, 15 December 1952 at Higgins Inc., New Orleans, LA; Launched, 21 August 1953; Commissioned USS Fidelity (AM-443), 19 January 1955, LCDR Creighton D. Lilly, USN in command; Redesignated as an Ocean Minesweeper, MSO-443, 7 February 1955; Decommissioned, 19 May 1989; Struck from the Navy Register 16 June 1989; Sold for scrap 10 September 1990 to Wyns Hoggs for $13,775.

Specifications: Displacement 775 t; Length 172'; Beam 35'; Draft 12'; Speed 14 kts; Complement 8 Officers, 70 Enlisted; Armament, as built, one single 40mm gun mount, two .50 cal machine guns, final configuration, bow gun replaced by one twin 20mm gun mount, two .50 cal. machine guns remain; Propulsion, four Packard ID1700 diesel engines, replaced by four Waukasha Motors Co. diesels, two shafts, two controllable pitch propellers.

Click on thumbnail
for full size image		 Size Image Description Source
Fidelity 46k Picture taken when home ported at Naval Coastal Systems Center Panama City Beach, Florida. Thomas L. Cox
MINDIV-82 120k Ship's of Mine Division Eighty Two prepare to leave Charleston, SC for a Mediterranean deployment. MINDIV-82 ship's from left to right are: Fearless (MSO 442), Avenge (MSO 423), Exultant (MSO 441), the Belgium Minesweeper F. Bovesse (M 909) (ex-MSO-516), and Fidelity.
Official U.S. Navy photo courtesy of Leroy D. "Mo" Mahoney		 Belgium MSO Web Site
Fidelity 165k U.S. Navy photo Tom Langford
Fidelity 148k . David Buell
Fidelity 292k From the March 1983 edition of All Hands magazine
Photo by LT Isnor, USCG		 Joe Radigan
View the Fidelity (MSO 443)
DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Web Site.
Crew Contact And Reunion Information
Navy MSO Association Email Addresses
Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
102 Minesweepers (MSO) Oceangoing Minesweepers
Naval Minewarfare Association
Association of Minemen
Navy MSO Association
Back To The Main Photo Index Back To the Mine Warfare Ship Photo Index Back to the Ocean Minesweeper (MSO) Photo Index
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