USS Tripoli (LPH-10)

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USS Tripoli underway
History
United States
Name	Tripoli
Namesake	Battle of Derna
Ordered	10 December 1962
Builder	Ingalls Shipbuilding
Yard number	1105[1]
Laid down	15 June 1964
Launched	31 July 1965
Completed	20 July 1966
Commissioned	6 August 1966
Decommissioned	15 September 1995
Stricken	15 September 1995
Identification	Callsign: NWQU Hull number: LPH-10
Motto	Semper Princeps (Always First)[citation needed]
Fate	Scrapped in 2018
General characteristics
Class and type	Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship
Displacement	19,302 tons
Length	598 feet (182 m)
Beam	84 feet (26 m)
Draught	30 feet (9 m)
Propulsion	2 × 600 psi (4.1 MPa) boilers, one geared steam turbines, one shaft, 22,000 shaft horse power
Speed	23 knots (26 mph; 43 km/h)
Complement	718 (80 officer, 638 enlisted)
Armament	Initially: 2 × 2 3-inch (76 mm) / 50 caliber DP guns, 8 cell Sea Sparrow BPDMS launchers, Later: 2 × Phalanx CIWS
Aircraft carried	20 × CH-46 Sea Knight, 10 × MH-53E Sea Dragon, 3 × AH-1 Cobra

USS Tripoli (LPH-10), an Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship, was laid down on 15 June 1964 at Pascagoula, Mississippi, by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation; launched on 31 July 1965; sponsored by Jane Cates, the wife of General Clifton B. Cates, former Commandant of the Marine Corps; and commissioned on 6 August 1966 at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Tripoli was the second US Navy ship named for the Battle of Derna in 1805. It was the decisive victory of a mercenary army led by a detachment of US Marines and US Army soldiers against the forces of Tripoli during the First Barbary War and was the first recorded land battle of the United States fought overseas.^[2]

Following three months fitting out at Philadelphia, the ship put to sea on 6 November 1966, bound for the west coast. She transited the Panama Canal at mid-month and arrived at her home port, San Diego, on 22 November 1966. Final acceptance trials, shakedown training, and post-shakedown availability at Long Beach occupied the warship until she embarked Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron HMH-463, elements of Marine Observation Squadron VMO-6, and some members of the staff of the Commander, Amphibious Squadron 8 on 1 May 1967 and departed San Diego, bound for the western Pacific.