U.S.S. Whidbey Island

A

Aiviq

New member
During my 15 years in the Foreign Service I've never had the opportunity to see any U.S. Naval vessels. (They don't make it to landlocked sub-Saharan African countries for some reason). There aren't any Navy bases in Alaska anymore, either, so I never got to see any there. In the past month we've had two port calls by U.S. Navy ships here in Tunis, though. The first was the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise, which is way to big to actually get into the port here, but a half dozen lucky embassy employees won the lottery to get flown out to see it in a C-2A. I was disappointed to miss out on that, but this weekend a marine landing ship dock, LSD-41 the U.S.S. Whidbey Island made a port call, and my family and I got a chance to tour it.

The Whidbey Island is part of a Marine Amphibious Response Group that has been cruising in the Mediterranean the past 6 months and they are just getting ready to head home to Virginia. During their cruise, they were involved in evacuating American Nationals from Lebanon during the recent conflict there.

It was a real pleasure to see the ship, and meet the sailors and Marines who've been serving on it. The Whidbey Island is apparently one of the smaller vessels in the MARG, but it was still incredible to see.

As was the case in Lebanon, these MARGs are the kind of asset that is occasionally called upon by the State Department to evacuate embassies in a crisis. (Embassies get at least partially evacuated rather commonly, but fortunately needing to send in the Marines to do it is fairly rare). One generally doesn't want to be in a situation where you get to see the Marines establishing an amphibious beachhead, but when you do find yourself in that situation, these guys would be a magnificent sight.

For a Navy ship this one has a pretty good name, too.

I've never figured out how to show a picture in a post, but here is a link to a photo of the Whidbey Island.

http://www.whidbey-island.navy.mil

Jim
 
Can't get enough of the Navy vessels. My son served four years on the Rainier, out of Bremerton. The technology and training that goes into the operation and upkeep on those ships is incredible. It costs a lot of money and takes a lot of effort, but these people keep us as safe, and as free, as any country can be.
 
This may be a good time to give a tip of the hat to those in the Foreign Service. I have a friend who has a friend whose children were visiting relatives in southern Lebanon during that recent war. The parents were frantic. My friend asked us all to try and help. We found a State Dept. web site with a phone number to call. The kids were picked up by the marines, taken to the capital and then on the first transport out to some island in the Med., where their parents met them.
 
Here you go Jim. - Nice looking ship. - I wounder if it has ever visited Whidbey Island?

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Dave dlt.gif
 
Small world. In 1985, I was assigned as Deputy PM in the Amphibious Ship Office in Navsea in Washington. One of my first of many trips was for sea trials out of SupShip Bremerton (Sand Point) in Seattle for Sea Trials on Whidbey Island. As we were also charged with building the LCACs, we used Whidbey Island as a trials ship for those air cushion vehicles. I remember vividly the first trip when we put an LCAC into the well deck (41ft wide) and got it stuck hard. Very embarassing until someone realized that we had to inflate the "skirt" hard to get it to draw in enough to reduce the LCAC beam to clear it from the sides of the well deck so it would move. We were considering lard or grease at the time as I recall, glad it didn't get that far....

These were great ships, had lots of problems though with the Colt Pielstick Main Engine Diesels, took lots of time to get the bugs on those new engines worked out.

Takes me back....sigh.. :love

Charlie
 
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