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NavSource Online: Mine Warfare Vessel Photo Archive

AM / MSO-446 Fortify


Contributed by Mike Smolinski
Agile Class Minesweeper: Laid down, 30 November 1951 by the Seattle Shipbuilding and Drydocking Co., Seattle, WA; Launched, 19 February 1953; Commissioned USS Fortify (AM-446), 16 July 1954; Reclassified as an Ocean Minesweeper MSO-446, 7 February 1955; Decommissioned, 31 August 1992; Struck from the Naval Register, 9 March 1994; Laid up in the Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Portsmouth, VA; Final Disposition, as of 9 March 1994, to be sold under the Security Assistance Program, cash sale. Sold, 4 December 2000 to Baltimore Marine Industries, Baltimore, MD for scrapping.

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.
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Size Image Description Source
Fortify 210k - Courtesy Dick Lewis
102 Minesweeper Web Site
Fortify/Engage 26k Fortify and Engage (MSO 433), Hong Kong, summer 1960. Photo taken from Inflict (MSO 456). Photo by Floyd Farrar
Fortify 46k Fortify, Stormy transit of the Formosa Straits, summer 1960. Photo taken from Inflict (MSO 456). Photo by Floyd Farrar
Fortify 357k Chesapeake Bay, 4 May 1989. © Atlantic Fleet Sales
Nobe Smith
Fortify 101k A view of a portion of the mothball fleet in storage near Portsmouth, VA, 18 October 1994. In the back of the basin is two patrol missile hydrofoil patrol boats of the Pegasus class, three ocean minesweepers, Fortify (MSO-446) and two others, the fleet tugs Paiute (ATF-159), Papago (ATF-160) and the salvage vessel Recovery (ARS-43).
DVIC Photo DNSC9501404
Don S. Montgomery
Defense Visual Information Center

View the Fortify (AM/MSO-446)
DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Web Site. The main archive for the DANFS Online Project.

Crew Contact And Reunion Information
U.S.Navy Memorial Foundation
Fleet Reserve Association

Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
102 Minesweepers (MSO) Oceangoing Minesweepers
Naval Minewarfare Association
Association of Minemen

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