USS Germantown (LSD 42) Arrives off Japan

USS Germantown leaving San Diego/Public Domain

USS Germantown (LSD-42) is the second Whidbey Island-class dock landing ship in the United States Navy. She is the second Navy ship named after the Revolutionary War Battle of Germantown.
Germantown was the first ship in the class to serve in the Pacific. The amphibious ship's mission is to project power ashore by transporting and launching amphibious craft and vehicles loaded with embarked Marines in support of an amphibious assault. The ship was designed specifically to operate with Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) vessels. It has the largest capacity for these landing craft (four) of any US Navy amphibious platform.
The Navy ordered USS Germantown 26 March 1982. Four years later, on 8 February 1986, the ship was commissioned. In 1990–1991, she played a significant role during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The ship participated in mock amphibious assaults in the United Arab Emirates after the start of the air war in preparation for a possible amphibious assault.
On 16 August 2002, Harpers Ferry relieved Germantown as a forward-deployed naval unit in Sasebo, Japan. Germantown returned to San Diego, California, where she underwent a US$25 million overhaul. One year later, the ship deployed to the Persian Gulf as part of Expeditionary Strike Group One. Germantown supported Operation Iraqi Freedom by landing Marines and equipment from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
In February 2006 Germantown deployed to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, carrying the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit to Kuwait. She assisted Iraq in the North Persian Gulf by responding to an oil fire on the Khwar Al Amaya Oil Terminal and by querying vessels before they entered Iraqi waters. Germantown conducted "Presence Operations" throughout the Persian Gulf before returning to San Diego, California in August 2006.
Germantown departed for the Persian Gulf on 5 November 2007 to support Operation Enduring Freedom by transporting members of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit to Kuwait for field exercises. She then proceeded to conduct Maritime Security Operations throughout the Persian Gulf and was later tasked with conducting oil platform defense in the narrow Shatt-Al-Arab waterway on the Iran-Iraq border. She returned home to San Diego, California, on 3 June 2008 and began preparations for an extended mid-life overhaul to commence in the winter of 2008.
In January 2011, the Germantown reversed the 2002 hull swap with the Harpers Ferry, to return to Sasebo, and immediately proceeded to join the Essex Amphibious Ready Group for Cobra Gold 2011, a multinational exercise hosted annually by the Kingdom of Thailand
  USS Germantown with the Essex Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) ships arrived off the west coast of mainland Japan in preparation to provide humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HADR) support to the nation, March 18.