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Date: Tue, 5 Sep 1995 18:12:00 -0400
From: Publications Generic Mailbox <pubs@media.mediacen.navy.mil>
Subject: Navy Wire Service A - 05 Sept. 95

NWSA1012.  USS Tripoli ready for decommissioning
     SAN DIEGO (NWSA) -- USS Tripoli (LPH 10) will be
decommissioned on Sept. 8, at Naval Station San Diego, after 29
years of service.
     Tripoli is the second ship to be named after the famous
fleet-shore operation in 1805 that inspired the words to the
Marine hymn "To the shores of Tripoli."  During this operation, a
small group of U.S. Marines under Lt. Presley N. O'Bannon, along
with a multi-national army, marched 600 miles over North African
deserts to assault and capture the city of Derne.  The land
assault was the decisive action in the Tripolitan War, which
humbled Tripoli, one of the Piratical Barbary states.
     The first U.S. Navy ship to bear the name Tripoli was a
notable World War II escort aircraft carrier decommissioned in
1958.
     The present Tripoli's keel was laid on June 15, 1964, at the
Ingalls Shipbuilding Yard in Pascagoula.  It was launched on July
31, 1965, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard on
Aug. 6, 1966.
     Tripoli moved to the west coast via the Panama Canal and
began operating out of San Diego.  The ship departed May 1, 1967,
for its first deployment to Southeast Asia during the Vietnam
Conflict.
     During her final Western Pacific/Indian Ocean deployment,
Tripoli provided logistical support for the U.N. relief effort to
Rwanda, Operation Support Hope.
     Following an upkeep period in Jebel, Ali, United Arab
Emirates, Tripoli steamed to the coast of Somalia to support the
relocation of the U.S. liaison office from Mogadishu to Nairobi,
Kenya.
     Tripoli was among the first Naval Forces on station and
steamed just off the Kuwaiti coast as a show of force against
possible Iraqi aggression when Iraqi troops began massing on the
Kuwaiti border.
     Returning from her highly successful last deployment in
December 1994.  In April, 1995, the ship made her last foreign
port visit to Vancouver, British Columbia, and hosted a record
43,000 visitors.
                              -USN-