USS Dubuque (LPD-8)
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| History | |
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| Name: | USS Dubuque |
| Namesake: | the city of Dubuque, Iowa |
| Ordered: | 25 January 1963 |
| Builder: | Ingalls Shipbuilding |
| Laid down: | 25 January 1965 |
| Launched: | 6 August 1966 |
| Commissioned: | 1 September 1967 |
| Decommissioned: | 30 June 2011 |
| Homeport: | Naval Base San Diego |
| Motto: | Our Country: Heritage, and Future |
| Nickname(s): | The Mighty 8 |
| Honors and awards: |
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| Status: | Decommissioned June 2011 |
| Badge: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Austin-class |
| Type: | amphibious transport dock (LPD) |
| Displacement: | |
| Length: |
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| Beam: |
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| Draft: | 23 ft (7.0 m) maximum |
| Decks: | well deck 7,000 sq. feet |
| Ramps: | 2 |
| Installed power: | 24,000 per shaft (2 shafts) |
| Propulsion: | Two 600psi Foster-Wheeler boilers, two Delaval steam turbines, two shafts |
| Speed: | 21 knots (24 mph; 39 km/h) |
| Boats & landing craft carried: |
2 RHIB |
| Capacity: | cargo capacity 2,500 tons |
| Complement: | 24 officers, 396 enlisted, 840 marine troops, 90 flag/staff personnel |
| Crew: | Mixed |
| Armament: | Two 25mm Mk 38 chain guns, two 20mm Mk 15 Phalanx CIWS, eight .50-calibre machine guns |
| Aircraft carried: | Two CH-46/CH-53 equivalents, or four UH-1/AH-1 equivalents, or two AV-8B Harriers |
| Aviation facilities: | 1 hangar |
USS Dubuque (LPD-8), an Austin-class amphibious transport dock, is the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the city of Dubuque, Iowa.
USS Dubuque is named after Dubuque, Iowa on the Mississippi River and her founder, Julien Dubuque - a French Canadian explorer. The second ship to bear the name, USS Dubuque was commissioned on 1 September 1967 at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Dubuque's keel was laid down on 25 January 1965 by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. She was launched on 6 August 1966 and commissioned on 1 September 1967 at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia. In November 1967, the ship arrived at her first homeport of San Diego, California after transiting the Panama Canal.
From 1968 until 1975, Dubuque made five Western Pacific deployments that saw extensive duty in Vietnam. In a highly publicized event in October 1968, the ship returned 14 repatriated prisoners of war to North Vietnam. From 1969 until 1971 the ship conducted ten "Keystone Cardinal" troop lifts to Okinawa as part of the "Vietnamization" of the war. Dubuque relieved USS Cleveland (LPD-7) as the launch platform for HMA-369's Marine Hunter-Killer (MARHUK) Operations near Hon La (Tiger Island) off the coast of North Vietnam. From February to June 1973 the ship operated helicopters that conducted naval mine clearance operations in Haiphong Harbor as part of Operation End Sweep. In April 1975 the ship participated in Operation Frequent Wind, the evacuation of Saigon and the rescue of refugees fleeing South Vietnam.
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