USA — Navy to Christen Amphibious Transport Dock Ship Anchorage

The Navy will chris­ten the newest amphibi­ous trans­port dock ship, Anchor­age, Sat­ur­day, May 14, 2011, dur­ing a 10 a.m. CDT cer­e­mo­ny at Hunt­ing­ton Ingalls Indus­tries — Avon­dale Ship­yard in Avon­dale, La.

Anchor­age is named in hon­or of the largest city in Alaska. 

Under Sec­re­tary of the Navy Robert Work will deliv­er the ceremony’s prin­ci­pal address. Annette Con­way, wife of for­mer Marine Corps Com­man­dant Gen­er­al James T. Con­way, is the ship’s spon­sor, and in accor­dance with Navy tra­di­tion, will break a bot­tle of cham­pagne across the bow to for­mal­ly chris­ten the ship. 

Des­ig­nat­ed LPD 23, Anchor­age is the sev­enth amphibi­ous trans­port dock ship in the San Anto­nio class. As an ele­ment of future expe­di­tionary strike groups, the ship will sup­port Marine Corps ship-to-shore mobil­i­ty, which con­sists of the land­ing craft air cush­ion vehi­cle, amphibi­ous assault vehi­cles and the Osprey tilt-rotor air­craft. Anchor­age will pro­vide improved warfight­ing capa­bil­i­ties, includ­ing an advanced com­mand-and-con­trol suite, increased lift-capa­bil­i­ty in vehi­cle and car­go-car­ry­ing capac­i­ty and advanced ship-sur­viv­abil­i­ty fea­tures. The ship is capa­ble of embark­ing a land­ing force of up to 800 Marines. 

One pre­vi­ous ship car­ried the name Anchor­age. The first USS Anchor­age (LSD-36) was com­mis­sioned in 1969, earn­ing the Mer­i­to­ri­ous Unit Com­men­da­tion and six bat­tle stars for Viet­nam ser­vice, receiv­ing the Navy Unit Cita­tion and the South West Asia Ser­vice Medal (2 stars) for Oper­a­tion Desert Storm and sup­port­ing Oper­a­tion Iraqi Free­dom. When decom­mis­sioned in 2003, the first USS Anchor­age was the most dec­o­rat­ed dock land­ing ship on the West Coast. 

Cmdr. Bri­an J. Quin is the prospec­tive com­mand­ing offi­cer and will lead a crew of 360 offi­cers and enlist­ed Navy per­son­nel and three Marines. The 24,900-ton Anchor­age is being built by Hunt­ing­ton Ingalls Indus­tries — Avon­dale Ship­yard in Louisiana. The ship is 684 feet in length, has an over­all beam of 105 feet, and a nav­i­ga­tion­al draft of 23 feet. Four tur­bo-charged diesels pow­er the ship to sus­tained speeds of 22 knots. 

Media may direct queries to the Navy Office of Infor­ma­tion at 703–697-5342. For addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about this class of ship, please vis­it the Navy Fact File at http://go.usa.gov/jrb .

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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