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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

Left patch from the May 1963 issue of All Hands magazine, and right patch courtesy of Mike Smolinski

Guide (MSO-447)
ex-AM-447



Call sign:
November - Sierra - Sierra - November
Aggressive Class Minesweeper:

  • Laid down, 20 February 1953 as AM-447 by the Seattle Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Corp., Seattle, WA
  • Launched 17 April 1954
  • Reclassified as an Ocean Minesweeper MSO-447, 7 February 1955
  • Commissioned USS Guide (MSO-447), 15 March 1955
  • Decommissioned and struck from the Naval Register 9 July 1972
  • Sold 27 January 1974 for scrap through the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service to Al Kidman of Wilmington, CA for $26,601.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 630 t.(lt), 755 t.(fl)
  • Length 172'
  • Beam 35'
  • Draft 10'
  • Speed 14 kts.
  • Complement 80
  • Armament: As built, one 40mm gun mount and 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, two shafts, two controllable pitch propellers.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Guide 72k - USS Guide (MSO-447) Website
    Harry Westervelt (1960-62)
    Guide 105k - USS Guide (MSO-447) Website
    Albert B. Moore, (1959-61)
    Guide 67k -
    Enhance 298k Sasebo, Japan
    In dry dock astern of Enhance (MSO 437)    		 Barbara Ritola
    Commanding Officers
    01LT John E. Lowell, USN15 March 1955 - 1956
    02LT Lloyd M. Pearson, USN1956 - 1958
    03LCDR Robert Dewey Duncan, USN1958 - December 1959
    04LCDR George Edwin Barton, USNDecember 1959 - 1960
    05LCDR George Louis Hart, USN1960 - 1961
    06CDR Norbert L. Moriarity, USN1961 - 1963
    07CDR Curtis Ralph Norton, Jr., USN1963 - 1965
    08CDR Jack Edward Varney, USN1965 - 1966
    09LCDR Clarence Wayne Wood, USN1966 - 1968
    10LCDR Mark B. Williamson, USN1968 - 1968
    11LCDR Frank Dukat, USN1968 - 1968
    Courtesy Wolfgang Hechler and Ron Reeves
    View the Guide (MSO-447)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
    Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
    U.S.S. Guide MSO-447
    Another USS Guide MSO-447 Web Site
    102 Minesweepers (MSO) Oceangoing Minesweepers
    Naval Minewarfare Association
    Association of Minemen
    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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    This page created by Gary P. Priolo and maintained by Joe Radigan
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