Specifications:

Click on thumbnail for full size image	Size	Image Description		Source
	72k			Dan Harple Sr. Former crew member 1956 - 57
	54k	U.S. Navy photo		Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
	110k	c. June 1957 Mine Warfare School Yorktown, VA Moored outboard of Thrush (MSC 204)		Derick S. Hartshorn
	250k	USS Thrasher (MSC 203) off Naval Station Treasure Island in March 1962. The Oakland Bay Bridge (East End) can be seen in the background Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum photo MSC 203 539X2-3-62		Darryl Baker
	78k	c. 1964		Robert Hurst
	468k	19 September 1970 Program for Battle Efficiency Award Ceremony		Robert M. Cieri
	526k
	561k
	273k	LCDR J. A. Tallerico, Commanding Officer of USS Thrasher (MSC 203), left, is presented the Navy Battle "E" from Capt. G. J. LeBreton, Chief of Staff, COMINEPAC left. Mayor Florence E. Douglas, mayor of Vallejo, CA is in the center Vallejo Naval & Historical Museum photo MSC 203 1000X3-9-70		Darryl Baker

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Commanding Officers
01	LTJG Frank Mabbett McCraw, Jr., USN - USNA Class of 1950	16 August 1955 - 1956
02	LT James S. Jrennan, USN	1960
03	LT Robert Francis McCullough, USN	June 1961 - July 1961
04	LT Richard W. Zurich, USN	July 1961
05	LCDR J. A. Tallerico, USNR-R	1970

Courtesy Wolfgang Hechler

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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 degassing 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.