Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship

USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2), the lead ship of the class, off the coast of South Vietnam in 1965.
Class overview
Builders	Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Philadelphia Naval Shipyard Ingalls Shipbuilding
Operators	United States Navy
Preceded by	Essex class (some ships converted)
Succeeded by	Tarawa class
In commission	1961–2002
Completed	7
Active	0
Laid up	0
Retired	7
General characteristics
Type	Amphibious assault ship (LPH)
Displacement	18,474 tons (full) 11,000 tons (light)
Length	592 ft (180 m)
Beam	84 ft (26 m)
Draft	27 ft (8.2 m)
Propulsion	2 × 600 psi (4.1 MPa) boilers, one geared steam turbine, one shaft, 22,000 shaft horsepower (16 MW)
Speed	22 knots (41 km/h)
Troops	2,157
Complement	667
Armament	Initially: 2 × 2 3-inch (76 mm) / 50 caliber DP guns, 8 cell Sea Sparrow BPDMS launchers, Later: 2 × Phalanx CIWS
Aviation facilities	25 helicopters or AV-8 Harriers Flight deck width: 105 ft (32 m)

The Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ships of the United States Navy were the first amphibious assault ships designed and built as dedicated helicopter carriers, capable of operating up to 20 helicopters to carry up to 1,800 marines ashore. They were named for battles featuring the United States Marine Corps, starting with the Battle of Iwo Jima. The first ship of the class was commissioned in 1961, and the last was decommissioned in 2002. The hull classification of "LPH" stands for "Landing Platform Helicopter".

Operational history

Ships of this class participated in several conflicts and peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations:

• Nuclear weapons test support, Johnston Atoll 1962
• Cuban Missile Crisis 1962
• Vietnam War 1963–1973
• Dominican Civil War 1965
• Gemini and Apollo spacecraft recovery 1966–1975
• Iran hostage crisis 1980
• Multinational Force in Lebanon, 1982–1983
• Operation Urgent Fury, Grenada, 1983
• Operation Earnest Will, Persian Gulf 1987–1988
• Operation Sharp Edge, Liberia, 1990
• Gulf War 1990–1991
• Operation Eastern Exit, Somalia, 1991
• Operation Restore Hope, Somalia, 1993
• Operation Continue Hope, Somalia, 1994
• Operation Deny Flight, Bosnia, 1994
• Operation Uphold Democracy, Haiti, 1994
• Operation Vigilant Warrior, Kuwait, 1994
• Operation Assured Response, Liberia, 1996

One ship of this class, USS Guam (LPH-9), was used in a 1970-1974 Sea Control Ship experiment to test the concept of a smaller aircraft carrier using V/STOL aircraft.

Another ship, USS Inchon (LPH-12), was converted to a mine countermeasures ship which hosted mine sweeping helicopters.

The hull design of the Iwo Jima-class also became the basis of the slightly larger Blue Ridge class of amphibious command ships.

Ships in class

Name	Hull number	Builder	Laid down	Launched	Commissioned	Decommissioned	Fate
Iwo Jima	LPH-2	Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton	2 April 1959	17 September 1960	26 August 1961	14 July 1993	Broken up at Brownsville, 1996
Okinawa	LPH-3	Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia	1 April 1960	19 August 1961	14 April 1962	17 December 1992	Sunk as target, 6 June 2002
Guadalcanal	LPH-7		1 September 1961	16 March 1963	20 July 1963	31 August 1994	Sunk as target, 19 May 2005
Guam	LPH-9		15 November 1962	22 August 1964	16 January 1965	25 August 1998	Sunk as target, 16 October 2001
Tripoli	LPH-10	Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula	15 June 1964	31 July 1965	6 August 1966	15 September 1995	Broken up at Brownsville, 2018
New Orleans	LPH-11	Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia	1 March 1966	3 February 1968	16 November 1968	31 October 1997	Sunk as target, 10 July 2010
Inchon	LPH-12	Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascasgoula	8 April 1968	24 May 1969	20 June 1970	20 June 2002	Sunk as target, 5 December 2004

The seven ships of the Iwo Jima-class were given non-sequential hull numbers, as, at the time of their construction, five existing aircraft carriers were being converted to serve in the Landing Platform Helicopter role - these five ships were renumbered, with the new ships slotted into a single sequence. The five existing ships were:

Name	Previous hull number	New hull number
Block Island	CVE-106	LPH-1a
Boxer	CV-21	LPH-4
Princeton	CV-37	LPH-5
Thetis Bay	CVE-90	LPH-6
Valley Forge	CV-45	LPH-8

• ^a Block Island was redesignated from CVE-106 to LPH-1 in anticipation of the ship being converted into the LPH role under project SCB 159. However, before the work could begin, the ship's conversion was cancelled, and it reverted back to its original number.

Popular culture

One of the Iwo Jima-class ships served as the fieldsite in Edwin Hutchins's classic cognitive science study Cognition in the Wild. Although Hutchins does not mention the ship class by name, on p. 7 he characterizes it as a 603-foot-long (184 m) amphibious helicopter carrier.

References

• hazegray.org: Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ships