17 June. Towhee remained on active duty with the Atlantic Fleet through 1953. Decommissioning Towhee was decommissioned and laid up at Orange, Texas, in March 1954. On 7 February 1955, a fleet-wide redesignation of minecraft resulted in Towhee being redesignated as MSF-388. The minesweeper remained inactive through November 1963. Reactivation as Oceanographic Survey Ship In December of that year, the ship proceeded to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Pennsylvania, for activation and conversion to an oceanographic survey ship to replace that was decommissioned and eventually scrapped. She was recommissioned on 1 April 1964 and redesignated as survey ship USS Towhee (AGS-28). East Coast survey operations Assigned to Service Force, Atlantic Fleet, and homeported in Norfolk, Virginia, the ship completed underway training by July at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Towhee then commenced a series of five oceanographic survey operations through the summer of 1965 before assisting in builder's trials for a nuclear submarine in the late summer. Navigational difficulties caused a premature return from the ship's sixth survey operation in late October, necessitating a tender availability alongside before the survey ship departed Norfolk on 6 December and deployed once more for survey operations in the western Atlantic Ocean. The ship remained with the Atlantic Fleet through May 1966, when she underwent a tender availability alongside to prepare for shifting her operations back to the Pacific Upon completion of the tender availability, Towhee entered the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for installation of new communications equipment and air conditioning. Pacific Ocean survey operations She departed the shipyard on 1 July and the Norfolk, Virginia area six days later, bound for Pearl Harbor. After stopovers at the Panama Canal Zone and at Mazatlán, Mexico, Towhee made port at Pearl Harbor on 12 August.Assigned to ServRon 5, the oceanographic survey vessel underwent voyage repairs soon after arriving in Hawaiian waters and continued availability through September. From 18 October to 5 November, the ship conducted underway training operations and refresher training. On 9 November, the ship got underway for her first Far Eastern deployment. After layovers at Guam in the Marianas and at Subic Bay in the Philippines, Towhee dropped anchor in Touraine Bay, off Da Nang, South Vietnam, on 9 December. Survey operations conducted between the time of her arrival and her departure on 12 January 1967 were frequently hampered by gale winds and high seas. The ship subsequently returned, via Subic Bay and Guam, to Hawaiian waters