LHA6 News & Information

The LHA6 was named by the Secretary of the Navy on

Friday June 27, 2008 At the CVA'S REUNION 2008 In Jacksonville, FL. TheUSS AMERICA LHA6

Remarks by Donald C. Winter

Secretary of the Navy

USS AMERICA Veterans Association Reunion Dinner

Crown Plaza Hotel

Jacksonville, FL

Friday, June 27, 2008

 

General and Mrs. Pace, Mr. Walter Waite, Miss Kirsten Haglund, AMERICA veterans, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be here today among so many veterans.

In my experience, former crewmembers of a ship tend to be a very spirited bunch, devoted to their ship and passionate in their support of the Navy.

However, I must say, I have never met a more enthusiastic group than USS AMERICA veterans.

It is clear that your lifelong devotion to your ship and what it represents is deeply felt, and comes from the heart.

To serve in a ship named after our country adds to the pride one feels in being part of the Navy, and adds to the feeling that when AMERICA pulls into port, there is no more powerful symbol of the strength, the ideals, and the greatness of the United States of America.

Those who have served in USS AMERICA feel this intensely, and they have left behind a great legacy.

Entering service in 1965, at the height of the Cold War, USS AMERICA began a career spanning three decades that included participation at the center of some of the most important events of the period.

The American people, watching at home, learned on the evening news about many of them—through the crisis of 1967 in the Middle East, through three deployments to Vietnam, and through the difficult, tense days off the coast of Lebanon during the early 1980’s.

AMERICA returned to the center of events in 1986, performing freedom of navigation exercises in the Gulf of Sidra, and then starring in Operation El Dorado Canyon in response to Libya’s terrorist attack on a nightclub in West Berlin that April.

That operation, assessed by all observers to have been a spectacular feat of mission planning and execution, put AMERICA on the map as an indispensable asset in moments of crisis.

The entire national security team knew that AMERICA’s superbly trained crew could be counted on when the Nation needed it most.

Eight years later, the commander in chief would once again turn to AMERICA to execute combat missions in a moment of crisis.

After heroically accelerating her time in the shipyard for maintenance, AMERICA joined three other aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf in February 1991, just prior to the launch of Operation Desert Storm.

3008 combat sorties later—including 78 consecutive days at sea—AMERICA left the Gulf and headed home, laden with heroes and honors.

Those who served on her—and those who served alongside her—still remember the scene of that departure for home after the ship’s last underway replenishment.

With the ship’s choir singing Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to Be an American,” broadcast on the 1MC, there was not a dry eye to be found on deck.

It was a breakaway song that lifted every heart to the skies.

AMERICA’s veterans have much to be proud of, and superb performance will always be associated with that name.

It is with this extraordinary legacy in mind that I would like to take this opportunity to announce the name of what will be one of the crown jewels of our Fleet.

And so today, I am proud to announce that LHA 6, our newest amphibious assault ship, will carry on the proud legacy of her predecessors and be named . . . USS AMERICA.

America today is confronted with unprecedented terrorist threats from global jihadists who openly state their goals of our destruction.

We also live in a world of rising powers in Asia—some with the potential to challenge us both economically and militarily.

We cannot afford to be complacent.

History is replete with examples of nations caught unprepared for the threats that unexpectedly brought war to their shores.

We must not make the same mistake.

We cannot know if nations will evolve along a peaceful path.

 

We can, however, take notice when nations with growing power and ambitions are rapidly developing their military capabilities—especially at sea.

Given these dangers today, and potential threats tomorrow, we need a Navy and Marine Corps capable of both prosecuting today’s war against global jihadists and meeting the challenges that future wars may bring.

LHA-6 will be a superb new addition to the amphibious fleet, showcasing the tremendous synergy and unique capabilities of the Navy-Marine Corps team.

The expeditionary capabilities of the United States—made famous across the Pacific and on D-Day in World War II, and raised to new heights in today’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—are second to none. The capabilities that our Navy and Marine Corps bring to the Joint fight differentiate our military from the militaries of other nations, providing us with both powerful deterrence and unmatched forcible entry capability.

Drawing on the lessons learned from combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Navy and Marine Corps determined that an amphibious platform with enhanced aviation facilities would best meet our warfighting requirements.

The design for LHA 6 is the result.

It will be a ship worthy of her illustrious namesake, and it will continue America’s long tradition of peace through strength—a tradition that dates from our Founding.

Indeed, President George Washington spelled out clearly the policy that should guide the young Nation in a turbulent, dangerous world:

“If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure the peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.”

The AMERICA is a wise investment in our Nation’s security, and it will help us to face the challenges of an uncertain future.

Let us all resolve to carry on our Nation’s honored tradition of peace through strength.

With the fighting spirit of USS AMERICA and the rest of our world class Navy

and Marine Corps, America will continue to fulfill her destiny as a beacon of freedom in the world.

* * *

Now I would like to make an additional announcement.

There is a time-honored tradition in the United States Navy of extending an invitation to a distinguished individual to act as a ship’s sponsor.

It is the role of the ship’s sponsor to perform the ceremonial duty of breaking a bottle of champagne on the hull of the ship, formally christening her for all to see.

The sponsor then becomes part of that ship’s history, charged with carrying on the spirit of the ship, whatever her destiny.

The ship’s company may change many times over the course of a ship’s life, but the sponsor remains the same.

I am pleased to announce that Mrs. Lynne Pace has graciously accepted our invitation to serve as the sponsor of USS AMERICA.

In her many years as a Marine spouse—from the time her husband was a junior officer through his service as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—and in their continued service after his retirement last year, Lynne Pace has been both a role model and an inspiration to others.

Lynne is universally respected and admired as someone who has devoted a lifetime to supporting our armed forces, and who has been engaged in countless charitable activities for many decades.

Whether serving to support CARE, the USO, Fisher House, mentorship programs, or injured Marines at Bethesda and Walter Reed, Lynne has been an inspiration to all those whose lives she has touched with her grace, humility, and kind heart.

She exemplifies everything that is great about our country, and it would be difficult to imagine anyone who could better carry on the spirit of this ship, than Lynne Pace.

Lynne, thank you for accepting this honor. And now, I invite you, Walter Waite and the Board of Directors to please join on the stage for the unveiling.

 

 

 

 

 

Secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter, Miss America, Kirsten Hagland, Gen. and Mrs. Pace.

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From the July 14, 2008 issue of the Navy Times

Carrier veterans embrace new ‘America’ gator

Some 15 months after losing their first bid to have a new aircraft carrier named “America,” the veterans of the last carrier America got their prize June 27 when the Navy announced its new amphibious assault ship would take the name.

Navy Secretary Donald Winter told a reunion of the America Carrier Veterans Association in Jacksonville, Fla., that the name would be given to the ship previously known only as LHA 6, scheduled to join the fleet in 2013.

The veterans of the America have been calling for another ship to take the name since theirs, an 83,000-ton conventionally powered flattop, was sunk as a target in 2005 after 31 years of service. Although many other groups and individuals lobby Winter on behalf of ship names, the America veterans achieved their goal in record time.

The new America is planned as a 45,000-ton, gas-turbine-powered gator with an axial flight deck similar to a Wasp-class amphib, but no floodable well deck for landing craft. Although the ship’s numbering scheme technically puts it in the Tarawa class, which began with hull number LHA 1, Navy officials said the new America will have more in common with the amphibious assault ship Makin Island, LHD 8, now under construction in Pascagoula, Miss.

The Makin Island and the America are the first big amphibs with gas turbine power plants, as opposed to the steam boilers of their predecessors, and the America takes an even further departure by doing away with a well deck, in favor of a longer, broader flight deck to accommodate the Marine Corps’ short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing version of the F-35 Lighting II. Many other refinements, including new all-electric systems, mean the Navy considers both the Makin Island and the America “first-in-class ships.”

A poster using the name Rich McKinney on Navy Times’ message boards asked whether the America, with no well deck, should even be called an “amphibious assault ship.”

Even before it had a hull number, the ship now known as the America began as a Navy and Marine Corps requirement for an LHA replacement, or LHA(R), an aviation-only gator nicknamed “the Marine Corps aircraft carrier.” The Navy and the Marine Corps originally wanted two ships, one for the East and West coast, but Congress hasn’t yet funded a second ship, and it remains unclear how many will be built.

As long as the name “America” is somewhere in the fleet, that’s just fine with the veterans organization, said Don Richardson, a board member who serves as a spokesman for the group. Richardson, who served from 1968 to 1970 aboard the America as an aviation boatswain’s mate second class, is a defense contractor in Kentucky.

He said the America Carrier Veterans Association originally wanted its ship on the Navy’s donation list, so it could become a museum, and when that failed, the group wanted the “America” name on the carrier that eventually became the Gerald R. Ford.

When that push failed, a FedEx account executive named Brian Skon sent the group an e-mail letting them know there was another unnamed ship, the LHA(R), which was kind of an aircraft carrier. After a vote, the America veterans decided to begin lobbying the Navy to name that ship.

“I told the board members that the previous Americans had all been different classes of ships — it’s fitting that things work out this way. Plus this is going to be a new class of LHA of its own, and every subsequent LHA that gets built will now be the America class,” Richardson said.

Although that would be tradition, Navy officials said they weren’t sure if any follow-on ships would be called the America class, or if the name “America” set up a naming precedent for subsequent ships.

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http://www.defencetalk.com/news/publish/navy/Northrop_Grumman_Build_New_Amphibious_Assault_Ship_LHA_6120012121.php

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from the July 21, 2008 issue of the Navy Times

America class’ future remains undecided

Upcoming LHAs may operate under Military Sealift Command

By Philip Ewing - pewing@militarytimes.com
Posted : July 21, 2008
 

The USS America Carrier Veterans Association sent a letter to Navy Secretary Donald Winter on July 5, thanking him for putting their old ship’s name on the new amphibious assault ship previously known only as LHA 6. The break in tradition — of naming big-deck gators after famous Marine Corps battles — was just the most recent in a series of unusual details about the ship.

It has gas turbines, instead of steam boilers like its predecessors. It has no floodable well deck. It’s designed to carry more strike fighters than any previous amphib, giving the Marine Corps its own “aircraft carrier” to accompany task groups of traditional gators. And ultimately, the America may be the only ship of its kind.

Although plans call for the Navy to buy another ship similar to the America — which will form the “America class,” a spokeswoman with Naval Sea Systems Command confirmed — the second ship could nonetheless be radically different. It could have a similar design, but not be a warship. Instead, the second America could be built to civilian standards, not military; have a civilian crew and master; and operate under Military Sealift Command.

Under that scenario, it would have no built-in weapons, likely have a radically different internal design from the first America and be operated more like an MSC auxiliary than a Navy warship.

Then again, that could all change.

‘Very much in flux’

Pentagon planners have gone back and forth about what will be known as the America class, originally called the LHA(R) and envisioned as an aviation-centric replacement for the Tarawa-class gators. Originally, the second America was planned definitively as a Navy warship, so the Marine Corps could have one LHA for each coast, but it lost its funding in 2006 in favor of other ships.

In the Navy’s most recent shipbuilding plan, the second LHA re-emerged as part of the Maritime Preposition Force (Future), a planned squadron of less-robust auxiliary ships that would support an amphibious invasion after full-fledged warships had done the fighting.

But analysts said some Navy and Marine Corps leaders still would prefer at least two warships, as opposed to the America and MSC follow-ons. That, in turn, could affect the plan for the new MPF(F) ships and, potentially, the Pentagon’s underlying ideas about sea basing.

“The plan is very much in flux,” said Robert Work, a naval analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“There are arguments in favor of both” warships and MSC ships, naval author Norman Polmar said.

Winter’s spokeswoman, Capt. Beci Brenton, said Winter meets frequently with Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead to discuss gator requirements. She said July 9 that Winter continues to support the existing plan for a follow-on LHA(R) to be an MSC ship.

An LHA 7’s bigger flight deck and ability to carry more weapons and aviation fuel would give the Navy another warship built specifically to launch and support the new F-35B Lighting II joint strike fighter.

Rather than the MSC option, Work said he thought the Navy should add more America-class warships — he compared them to the escort carriers of World War II, which was the last time a smaller ship could carry the same front-line strike aircraft as a full-size fleet carrier. The AV-8B Harriers carried today by Wasp-class gators can’t fly as far or as fast as the F-35B — or pack as big a punch.

In their current configurations, the Wasps can’t support F-35Bs, Navy officials said. The Lighting II has a very powerful engine, and commanders worry that the jet blast could overheat and even warp the flight decks of today’s gators and carriers, although those effects won’t be clear until the first F-35B is tested on a ship, around 2010.

Navy spokesman Lt. Clay Doss said the eight Wasp-class gators — including the gas-turbine powered Makin Island, now under construction — would be augmented to handle the F-35B, starting with the Bataan. When the modifications are complete, the Navy plans for each Wasp-class ship to be able to carry six

F-35Bs, Doss said.

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