WOODEN SHIPS & IRON MEN
Bluebird Class Motor Minesweeper: Laid down, 5 February 1952 by the Mare Island Naval Shipyard,
Vallejo, CA; Launched, 11 May 1953; Commissioned USS Bluebird (AMS 121), 24 July 1953; Reclassified as a Coastal Minesweeper
MSC-121, 7 February 1955; Decommissioned, 1971 ; Struck from the Naval Register, 2 January 1975; Disposed of 1 August 1979
through the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service for scrap.
Specifications: Displacement 330 t.; Length 144'; Beam 28'; Draft 12'; Speed 13 kts; Complement 39; Armament one
twin 20mm, two .50 cal. machine guns, and one 81mm mortar; Propulsion 600hp Packard diesel engines, two shafts.
"Bluebird Class" coastal minesweeper nonmagnetic construction, wooden hull and stainless steel, aluminum, and bronze
engine and hull fittings.Fitted with UQS-1 sonar. Range is 2500 miles at ten knots
WOODEN SHIPS AND IRON MEN a book by CDR David D.Bruhn USN RET.The history of our MSO's from 1953 to 1994. To learn more about
this excellent minesweeper book please visit CDR Bruhn's website at the link below.
David Bruhn
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