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The second Thrasher (MSC-203) was laid down as AMS-203 on 1 April 1954 at Tampa, Fla., by the Tampa
Marine Co.; launched on 6 October 1954; sponsored by Mrs. Fred T. Henke; redesignated MSC-203 on 7 February 1955; and commissioned
on 16 August 1955, Lt. (jg.) Frank Mabbett McCraw, Jr.,
in command.
Two weeks later, Thrasher steamed for Charleston,
her home port, to join Mine Force, Atlantic Fleet. But for a visit to Havana, Cuba, the wooden-hulled nonmagnetic coastal
minesweeper spent the remainder of 1955 operating in South Carolina and Florida waters. She assumed duties as an active element
of Mine Force, Atlantic, on the last day of the year; and, on New Year's Day 1956, her home port was changed to Yorktown,
Va. The minesweeper's duties there included search and rescue missions for aircraft downed off the Virginia coast.
Assigned to the Experimental Mine Warfare School at Key West in 1957, the coastal minesweeper operated
off the east coast and in the Caribbean until 7 February 1958 when she departed Key West and steamed via the Panama Canal
and Manzanillo, Mexico, to the California coast, arriving at San Diego on the 28th. Assigned for a time to Scripps Institute
of Oceanography, Thrasher surveyed ocean currents off Monterey, Calif., in March. That summer, she cooperated with Warner
Brothers during the shooting of the film "Up Periscope" and then returned to her primary duty plying California's coastal
waters as a minesweeper with the San Diego Harbor Defense Command. In the fall, she trained sailors of the Turkish Navy and
later, when the Turkish Navy receIved a minesweeper from the United States under the Mutual Aid for Defense Program continued
to lend assistance during shakedown.
EarlY in 1959, Thrasher joined Fleet Training Group, San Diego, for underway exercises. In April,
she moved north to Seattle to conduct tests on the new "MM-1" automatic degaussIng system; then returned to southern California
for annual minesweeping exercises conducted out of Long Beach. On 8 May 1959, Thrasher departed San Diego and steamed independently
to Hawaii for additional tests of the new degaussing system which had been designed to compensate for changes in latitude
and longitude. After successfully completing the tests, she returned to San Diego on 6 June and, later in the summer, provided
assistance in channel conditioning to the harbor defense unit at San Francisco. In the fall, she acted as an observation ship
for aerial minelaying operations conducted by Fleet Air Wing 14 off San Diego and conducted additional tests of the new degaussing
system. In December 1959, Thrasher was transferred to the 12th Naval District and assigned a new home port of San Francisco
for duty with that port's harbor defense unit.
She took up her new duties in January and, in February, acted as target ship for Mero (SS-378) despite
heavy seas which rolled the minesweeper up to 50 degrees. After work on her degaussing system and installation of "Shoran"
at the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard, Thrasher participated in minesweeping exercises out of Long Beach, earning a letter
of commendation from Commander Mine Force, Pacific Fleet, for her performance. Late in the fall, she helped to salvage and
refloat YW-91 which had run aground at Santa Rosa Island. In this operation, Thrasher earned another letter of commendation.
The minesweeper continued assignments off the west coast until she was decommissioned on 1 August
1961. Placed in service as a reserve training ship for the 12th Naval District, she operated in that capacity for the next
14 years, conducting weekend training cruises and occasional fortnight refresher training cruises for her selected reserve
crew. During that time, she visited various California and Mexican ports. In the summers of 1966 and 1967, she joined Ruff
(MSC[O] 54) and Cormorant (MSC-122) to form naval reserve Mine Division 13 for exercises, including a month of operations
in 1967 off the coasts of Washington and Canada. That same year, Thrasher increased her number of reserve crews from one to
two and stepped up her training activities correspondingly. In 1973, she made another summer cruise to northern ports, calling
at ports in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.
In March 1975, she made her last reserve training cruise, conducting minesweeping exercises in Monterey
Bay before returning to San Francisco. Towed to the inactive ship facility at Mare Island on 1 May 1975, she was inactivated
and her name struck from the Navy list on 1 July. Late in 1975, she was transferred to the Republic of Singapore; and, into
1976, she served in the Republic of Singapore's Navy as RSS Mercury.
Members of the minesweeping community; The Lucid MSO-458 Foundation was formed by a group of minesweeper
crewmen who served aboard US Navy MSO's. MSO's are a class of wooden hull oceangoing minesweepers that are now decommissioned
and fading from public memory. The group has obtained the USS Lucid MSO-458 and has her docked at Bradford Island, California.
Work has begun! The organization is restoring her and a public museum is established. The MSO is a little known and poorly
documented, extremely interesting facet of Naval history. The USS Lucid Museum is dedicated to telling the story of the minesweeping
men and their wooden ships, the last all wooden US Naval ships, to navigate the oceans. We will be telling the stories of
Mine Recovery and UDT teams, Floating Pigs, Hammer Boxes, Magtails, Aluminum Engines and Towed Sonar. The little known stories
of Contact, Magnetic and Acoustic minesweeping as well as the mystery of Magnetic Countermeasures will be told through the
displays, narratives and museum media. Typhoons, tiny ships and ice-clad superstructures are only a small part of the "Wooden
Ships and Iron Men" story. From sweeping the Mekong Delta in Viet Nam, observing the final Nuclear blasts on Johnston Island
to sweeping the Persian Gulf, "Where the Fleet Goes, We've Been" will be clearly illustrated. Since there is no other Naval
Museum that even attempts to tell the story of the MSO the USS Lucid is an important and living detail of US Naval History.
First, Lucid must undergo a restoration. Previous civilian owners for commercial use have modified her. She needs hull repairs
and painting and re-outfitting to be brought back to her former Naval dignity and glory. The Lucid MSO-458 Foundation has
a workforce of planners, engineers and volunteer manpower who are vested and committed to this grand and worthy project. Bringing
her to life is a large financial undertaking. We’re looking for tax-exempt gifts from the Military Industrial sector
and individuals to help with this extremely valuable endeavor. Of course, all donors will be properly and prominently acknowledged
aboard the vessel. Your donation will help preserve this vital part of Naval History. Please join us in telling the MSO story
by sending a tax-exempt gift to Lucid MSO-458 Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit foundation through our website. http://www.usslucid.org
W.W."Mike"Warren EN2
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