USS Shenandoah (AD-44)

History
United States
Builder	National Steel and Shipbuilding Company
Laid down	2 August 1980
Launched	6 February 1982
Commissioned	15 August 1983
Decommissioned	3 September 1996
Stricken	28 July 2001
Fate	Scrapped in 2012
General characteristics
Class and type	Yellowstone-class destroyer tender
Displacement	20263 tons
Length	642 ft (196 m)
Beam	85 ft (26 m)
Draft	27 ft (8.2 m)
Propulsion	steam turbines, 20,000 shaft horsepower
Speed	20 knots
Complement	87 Officers 1508 Enlisted
Armament	2 20mm cannon, 4 .50 caliber machine guns

USS Shenandoah (AD-44) was the fourth and final ship of the Yellowstone-class of destroyer tenders. AD-44 was the fifth ship to bear the name, USS Shenandoah as named for the Shenandoah Valley. She was commissioned in 1983, only three years after the decommissioning of the previous USS Shenandoah (AD-26), also a destroyer tender.

In 1991,^[1] USS Shenandoah was diverted to the Red Sea to tend ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet's USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) Battle Group. The Shenandoah and her crew members were awarded the Southwest Asia Service Medal with one campaign star and the Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait).

Following her decommissioning in 1996, at only 13 years old, the USS Shenandoah was re-located at the James River Reserve Fleet in Fort Eustis, Va., awaiting final disposal. In FY15, the ex-Shenandoah was sold for dismantlement, departed the JRRF and was withdrawn from MARAD inventory.