USS Bold (MSO-424) was an Agile-class minesweeper acquired by the United States Navy for the task of clearing mines that had been placed in the water to prevent the safe passage of ships.

Bold was laid down on 12 December 1951 by the Norfolk Naval Shipyard; launched on 14 March 1953; sponsored by Mrs. Porter Hardy Jr.; and commissioned on 25 September 1953.

On 15 February 1955, after nearly a year and a half of active duty, the warship entered port at the home of the Atlantic Fleet Mine Force, Charleston, South Carolina, for the first time in her career.

After five weeks of the relative inactivity that usually follows a deployment, she steamed south early in November to enter the drydock of a civilian contractor at Jacksonville, Florida.

She completed that repair period in October and embarked upon a schedule of training missions in the local operating area in preparation for deployment to the Mediterranean again in January 1957.

She arrived back in Charleston, South Carolina, on 16 June and remained there through the middle of July for the normal post-deployment leave and upkeep period.

She made port visits and conducted exercises in the "middle sea" for a little less than four months before heading back to the United States early in 1959.

She carried out a special project for the Commander, Mine Force, Atlantic Fleet, between 8 and 10 March and then visited Savannah, Georgia, for St. Patrick's Day.

Bold spent the first 10 days of April undergoing repairs at a civilian drydock in Charleston and then took up the usual training evolutions in the local operating area once again.

Over the ensuing six months, she operated as an element of Task Force (TF) 62, conducting exercises and visiting a number of Mediterranean ports.

The month of May brought upkeep in Charleston and, in June, she traveled to Panama City, Florida, where she provided services to the Navy's Mine Defense Laboratory.

When not engaged in exercises, she made liberty calls at such places as Guantánamo Bay, San Juan, Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, and Ocho Rios in Jamaica.

Though occasionally called upon to perform special missions at various locations along the east coast, the minesweeper generally stayed close to her home port for the next 18 months.

At the end of June, Bold departed her home port in company with her colleagues of MinDiv 83 and set a course for the Gulf of Mexico, where she occupied the following month carrying out missions in support of the Mine Defense Laboratory at Panama City, Florida.

For almost five months the minesweeper ranged the length and breadth of the Mediterranean Sea, participating in a variety of exercises both multinational and unilateral in character.

Bold resumed local operations late in October but did not really accelerate to a normal pace until the beginning of 1968 when she began service as a training platform for the Mine Warfare School.

Early in October while carrying out a mission in support of the Naval Ordnance Laboratory Test Facility at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, she suffered damage to her main propulsion plant that put her in the Jacksonville Shipyard for two months.

On 1 May, Bold departed Charleston with MinDiv 83 bound for a month of exercises in the Caribbean Sea codenamed Operation Halcon Vista IV.

During the fall, she underwent an interim drydocking at the Jacksonville Shipyard and participated in quality assurance testing on weapons for Atlantic Fleet destroyers once again.