USS Wasp 15"

USS Wasp (LHD-1) is a U.S. Navy multipurpose amphibious assault ship, the tenth to be named after the USS Wasp, and the lead ship of her class. She was built by the Ingalls Shipbuilding division of Litton in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The Navy-Marine Corps team's newest amphibious warship has as its primary mission the support of a Marine Landing Force. USS Wasp and her sister ships are the first specifically designed to accommodate new Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) for fast troop movement over the beach and Harrier II (AV-8B) Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing (V/STOL) jets which provide close air support for the assault force. Wasp, which is 257 m long with a beam of 32 m, also accommodates the full range of Navy and Marine Corps helicopters, conventional landing craft, and amphibious vehicles.

To carry out its primary mission, USS Wasp has an assault support system that synchronizes the simultaneous horizontal and vertical flow of troops, cargo and vehicles throughout the ship. Two aircraft elevators service the hangar bay and flight deck. Six cargo elevators, each 4 by 8 m(12 by 25 ft), are used to transport material and supplies from the 3,000 m³ (100,000 cubic ft) cargo holds throughout the ship to staging areas on the flight deck, hangar bay and vehicle storage area. Cargo is transferred to waiting landing craft docked within the ship's 1200 m² (13,000 sq ft), 81 m(266 ft) long, well deck. Helicopters in the hangar bay or on the flight deck are cargo-loaded by forklift.

Wasp has medical and dental facilities capable of providing intensive medical assistance to 600 casualties, whether combat incurred or brought aboard ship during humanitarian missions. The corpsmen also provide routine medical/dental care to the crew and embarked personnel. Major medical facilities include four main and two emergency operating rooms, four dental operating rooms, x-ray rooms, a blood bank, laboratories, and patient wards. In addition, three battle dressing stations are located throughout the ship, as well as a casualty collecting area at the flight deck level. Medical elevators rapidly transfer casualties from the flight deck and hangar bay to the medical facilities.

For the comfort of the 1,075 crewmembers and 2,200 embarked troops, all manned spaces and berthing areas are individually heated and air conditioned. Berthing areas are subdivided to provide semi-private spaces without adversely affecting efficiency. Deck and wall coverings are decorative but also serviceable and easy to maintain. Messing areas facilitate rapid dining in a restaurant atmosphere. Onboard recreational facilities include a state-of-the-art Library Multi-Media Resource Center with Internet access, a weight room, arcade machines and satellite television capabilities.

USS Wasp's two steam propulsion plants—the largest currently in operation in the U.S. Navy—generate a total of 400 tons of steam per hour. The propulsion system develops 70,000 shaft horsepower (52 MW), powering the ship to speeds in excess of 22 knots (25.3 mph or 41 km/h). USS Wasp was built using more than 21,000 tons of steel, 400 tons of aluminum, 400 miles (600 km) of electrical/electronic cables, 80 miles (130 km) of piping and tubing of various types and sizes, and 10 miles (16 km) of ventilation ducting. Wasp weighed more than 27,000 tons when moved onto the Ingalls floating dry-dock on July 30, 1987 for launch on August 4, 1987, becoming the largest man-made object rolled across land.

Fleet Life

In February 1993, she left her port on an emergency deployment to Somalia to participate in the United Nations intervention: Operation Restore Hope. Joint Chiefs Chairman, Gen. Colin Powell landed on the ship that April for a discussion of military tactics taking place in and around Mogadishu. Following that, she assisted off the coast of Kuwait for another operation. She later made stops in Toulon, France and Rota, Spain enroute to her home port in Norfolk, VA.

In 1998, she won the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award for the Atlantic Fleet.

Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom

February 2004, the USS Wasp set sail to take the Marines of HMM-266 Rein to Afghanistan. They arrived at the end of May and offloaded the Marines. They then turned around and went back to the states to pick up the Marines from HMH-461 to take them to Djibouti. After offloading the HMH-461 in Djibouti, they picked up the Marines of HMM-266 Rein from Kuwait in August 2004, and returned to the coast of Norfolk, Virginia mid September 2004.

On July 7, 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney, visited the USS Wasp. He gave a speech honoring the efforts of the USS Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Wasp was the principal attraction at Fleet Week 2007 in New York City.

Other Operations

In September, 2007, the USS Wasp sailed to Nicaragua to offer help to the victims of Hurricane Felix.

USS Wasp was the first ship to deploy the V22 Osprey, doing so in October, 2007, by carrying VMM-263’s ten MV-22B Ospreys to Iraq to participate in Operation Iraqi Freedom.