USS Rushmore (LSD-14)

USS Rushmore (LSD-14) underway in 1965
History
Awarded:	1 September 1941
Builder:	Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co.
Laid down:	31 December 1943
Launched:	10 May 1944
Commissioned:	3 July 1944
Decommissioned:	30 September 1970
Struck:	1 November 1976
Fate:	Sunk as a target, 16 April 1993
General characteristics
Displacement:	7,930 tons (loaded), 4,032 tons (light draft)
Length:	457 ft 9 in (139.5 m) overall
Beam:	72 ft 2 in (22.0 m)
Draft:	8 ft 2½ in (2.5 m) fwd,   10 ft ½ in (3.1 m) aft (light);   15 ft 5½ in (4.7 m) fwd,   16 ft 2 in (4.9 m) aft (loaded)
Propulsion:	2 Babcock & Wilcox boilers, 2 Skinner Turbine Steam Engines, 2 propeller shafts – each shaft 3,700 hp, at 240 rpm total shaft horse power 7,400, 2 11 ft 9 in diameter, 9 ft 9 in pitch propellers
Speed:	17 knots (31 km/h)
Range:	8,000 nmi. at 15 knots (15,000 km at 28 km/h)
Boats & landing craft carried:	3 × LCT (Mk V or VI)   each w/ 5 medium tanks or 2 × LCT (Mk III or IV)   each w/ 12 medium tanks or 14 × LCM (Mk III)   each w/ 1 medium tank   or 1,500 long tons cargo or 47 × DUKW or 41 × LVT or Any combination of landing vehicles and landing craft up to capacity
Capacity:	22 officers, 218 men
Complement:	17 officers, 237 men (ship); 6 officers, 30 men (landing craft)
Armament:	1 × 5 in / 38 cal. DP gun; 2 × 40 mm quad AA guns; 2 × 40 mm twin AA guns; 16 × 20 mm AA guns
Aircraft carried:	modified to accommodate helicopters on an added portable deck

USS Rushmore (LSD-14) was a Casa Grande-class dock landing ship of the United States Navy. She was named in honor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The ship was originally authorized under the Lend-Lease Act as BAPM-6, the sixth of seven British Mechanized Artillery Transports. Reclassified a Landing Ship Dock, LSD-14, on 1 July 1942, the contract for LSD-14 was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia, on 10 September 1942. She was laid down on 31 December 1943, originally to be named HMS Sword, and later HMS Swashway (F145). While under construction, LSD-14, as well as -13 and -15, were reassigned back to the United States.

The ship was launched as Rushmore on 10 May 1944, sponsored by Miss Eleanor Vreelan Blewitt; and commissioned on 3 July 1944, Lieutenant Commander E. A. Jansen, USNR, in command.

Following shakedown in the Chesapeake Bay, landing ship dock Rushmore departed Norfolk on 5 August 1944 for the Pacific where she participated in four amphibious landings: the Battle of Leyte in October 1944; of Palawan in February 1945; of Mindanao in March 1945; and of Tarakan, Borneo, in May 1945.