USS Washtenaw County (LST-1166)
Washtenaw County (MSS-2) underway in Haiphong harbor, North Vietnam in June 1973. By running the channel to Haiphong, Washtenaw County verified that all U.S. mines had been cleared.
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| History | |
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| Name: | USS Washtenaw County |
| Namesake: | Washtenaw County, Michigan |
| Builder: | Christy Shipbuilding Corporation, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin |
| Laid down: | 29 November 1951 |
| Launched: | 22 November 1952 |
| Commissioned: | 29 October 1953, as USS LST-1166 |
| Decommissioned: | August 1973 |
| Renamed: | USS Washtenaw County, 1 July 1955 |
| Reclassified: | MSS-2 (Special Device Minesweeper), 9 February 1973 |
| Struck: | 30 August 1973 |
| Nickname(s): | Ichi Ichi Roku Roku Ichiban |
| Honours and awards: |
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| Fate: | Undergoing restoration to museum ship (presently on hold) |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Terrebonne Parish-class tank landing ship |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 384 ft (117 m) |
| Beam: | 55 ft (17 m) |
| Draft: | 17 ft (5.2 m) |
| Propulsion: | 4 × General Motors 16-278A diesel engines, 2 controllable pitch propellers |
| Speed: | 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) |
| Boats & landing craft carried: |
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| Troops: | 15 officers and 380 enlisted men |
| Complement: | 16 officers and 189 enlisted men |
| Armament: |
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| Aviation facilities: | Helicopter landing deck |
USS Washtenaw County (LST-1166) was a Terrebonne Parish-class tank landing ship in commission in the United States Navy from 1953 to 1973. Named for Washtenaw County, Michigan, she was the only U.S. Navy vessel to bear the name.
Originally laid down as LST-1166 on 29 November 1951 at Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin by the Christy Shipbuilding Corporation. The ship was launched on 22 November 1952, sponsored by Miss Dorothy Christenson; and commissioned at the New Orleans Naval Station on 29 October 1953 with Lieutenant Commander Mack D. Ellis in command.
The tank landing ship departed New Orleans on 28 November 1953 to join Landing Ship Flotilla 2, Atlantic Fleet, based at Little Creek, Virginia. There, she first joined the Amphibious Operational Training Element for seven weeks of shakedown training, following which she participated in amphibious operations at Vieques Island near Puerto Rico as a unit of LST Squadron 4. Routine operations out of the amphibious base at Little Creek occupied her time through the summer of 1954 and into the fall. In October, she began an extended repair period at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to correct vibration problems. She returned to active operations in March 1955. On 1 July 1955 she was named USS Washtenaw County (LST-1166). Between July and November, she operated out of Little Creek and then began preparations for her first overseas deployment.
On 9 January 1956 Washtenaw County stood out of Norfolk for a cruise with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. That deployment proved to be a quiet one, and the most notable events in which she participated were exercises and visits to a long itinerary of ports along the Mediterranean littoral. At the conclusion of that assignment, she headed back to Norfolk, where she arrived on 4 June. Following repairs at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, she resumed operations with the Atlantic Amphibious Force out of Little Creek. That November, the amphibious exercise in which she was scheduled to participate were cancelled because of the Suez Crisis. Washtenaw County remained in port through the end of the year on alert status ready to leave port on 24 hours notice. By January 1957, however, the crisis subsided, and the ship moved north to Staten Island, New York for an overhaul, followed by a month of refresher training in April. In June and July, she joined in a series of exercises in preparation for the NATO exercises which followed that fall.
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