Last updated: February 5, 2025
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USS SUFFOLK COUNTY (LST-1173)
Boston National Historical Park, BOSTS: 14324-131
Naval History and Heritage Command, L45-271.05.02
The End of an Era
During World War II, production at the Charlestown Navy Yard reached its peak. Nearly 50,000 employees worked day and night, building 141 ships and restoring over 3,200.[1] After the end of World War II, the Yard’s operations dramatically decreased in scope. Between 1945 and the Navy Yard’s closure in 1974, only one self-propelled ship was laid down: the De Soto County-class tank landing ship USS Suffolk County. Larger and faster than World War II-era LSTs, Suffolk County served to transport Marines and their equipment during amphibious operations.
Contrary to popular belief, however, Suffolk County was not the last vessel to be built at the Navy Yard. Four covered lighters, non-self-propelled transport barges designated YFN-1226 through YFN-1229, were constructed from June to September 1965. Service craft such as these never appeared on lists of vessels constructed by the Navy Yard, making Suffolk County the last ship of war to come out of the Yard’s shipways.[2]
Boston National Historical Park, BOSTS-14319-285
Named for the counties in both Massachusetts and New York, the keel of Suffolk County was laid down at the Charlestown Navy Yard in Shipway 1 on July 17, 1955. Thanks to the advanced prefabrication techniques of the postwar shipbuilding process, much of the hull was in place by December. Because of their size, the components had to be transported from the Assembly Shop (Building 195) via floating cranes on the water. The launching ceremony took place on September 5, 1956, under the sponsorship of Mildred O'Neil, wife of famous Boston congressman Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neil. Suffolk County still required another year in drydock for fitting.[3]
With Lieutenant Commander James E. Brown in command, Suffolk County had its commissioning ceremony in the Navy Yard on August 15, 1957. After completing beach landing training in Norfolk, Virginia, Suffolk County embarked Marines from the 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment at Morehead City, North Carolina, and sailed into the Atlantic. First, the ship conducted amphibious assault exercises at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, a location that Suffolk County would return to several times during its service.
Touring the Seas in the Cold War
On September 8, 1958, USS Suffolk County departed Norfolk for its first tour in the Mediterranean with the US Sixth Fleet. In between exercises at Porto Scuda, Sardinia, and Almeria, Spain, Suffolk County called at ports throughout the Mediterranean, including Beirut, Lebanon, taking part in the United States’ military intervention in support of the Lebanese government during its 1958 political crisis. Other stops included Greece, Turkey, Italy, Libya, and Spain. The ship returned to Norfolk on March 26, 1959.
Suffolk County served in the Atlantic for the next decade. It took part in Operation Inland Seas, the ceremonial opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway, as well as made several eventful deployments to Guantanamo Bay and the Dominican Republic. In late 1961, the ship took part in Solant Amity III, a fleet exercise along the west coast of Africa, calling at ports in South Africa, Gabon, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Suffolk County joined the United States blockade of Cuba, which ended with a successful resolution to the crisis in November. For its service during this period, Suffolk County received the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal.
US Navy, USS GUAM (LPH-9) 1965-66 Cruise Book
In 1964, USS Suffolk County was involved in Operation Steel Pike, the largest peacetime amphibious landing in history on the coast of Spain. Returning to the Caribbean, Suffolk County served off the coast of the Dominican Republic during the 1965 United States military intervention in the Dominican Civil War. In 1966, the ship took part in relief efforts after Hurricane Inez caused widespread destruction in the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
After another Mediterranean tour, Suffolk County resumed its duties in the Caribbean. Karl Orndorff, a Marine stationed on Suffolk County during the late 1960s, described life aboard.
Below deck the starboard side of the ship housed Navy crewmen in comfortable beds with mattresses. The port side was occupied by Marines that were packed in like sardines and kept isolated as much as possible from the Navy crew. The USS Suffolk County (LST-1173) was a tiny ship by modern standards. She could sail with the big ships, albeit like a cork beside a coal barge. But unlike them, she could deposit Marines near enough to a beach that landing craft or floating decks were able to finalize the delivery.[4]
In April 1970, USS Suffolk County deployed with five other ships to evacuate American citizens from Trinidad and Tobago, where political unrest had jeopardized their safety. However, the crisis was resolved internally, and no evacuation was necessary.[5]
Back to Port for Retirement
By the 1970s, the service life of USS Suffolk County was coming to an end. After another tour in the Mediterranean with the Sixth Fleet, Suffolk County returned to Norfolk, Virginia, to prepare for inactivation in 1972. The ship berthed at the James River the next year, remaining there with the Reserve Fleet until 1992, periodically removed from service during those 20 years for stripping and the removal of equipment. In 1999, the US Navy sold Suffolk County to the Transforma Marine Corporation of Brownsville, Texas, which scrapped the ship, ending its 44-year service.
As the last ship built in the Charlestown Navy Yard, USS Suffolk County represented the end of an era for the Yard. During its history, Suffolk County served across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean similar to the way its World War II-era predecessors had, projecting US Naval power in key strategic regions at the height of the Cold War.
Contributed by: Raphael Pierson-Sante, Digital Content Support Volunteer.
Footnotes
[1] Boston Redevelopment Authority, Charlestown Navy Yard: Master Plan for the Yard’s End, 5.
[2] Stephen P. Carlson, Charlestown Navy Yard Historic Resource Study (Division of Cultural Resources, Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service, 2010), 153.
[3] Ibid, 154.
[4] Karl Orndorff, The First Casualty: A Vietnam Memoir (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012), 260-261.
[5] Naval and Maritime Chronology 1961-1971 (Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1973), 230.
Sources
Boston Redevelopment Authority. Charlestown Navy Yard: Master Plan for the Yard’s End. 1990.
Carlson, Stephen P. Charlestown Navy Yard Historic Resource Study, Division of Cultural Resources, Boston National Historical Park, National Park Service, 2010.
Cressman, Robert J. “Suffolk County (LST-1173) 1957-1989,” Naval History and Heritage Command, March 5, 2024. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/s/suffolk-county.html
Orndorff, Karl. The First Casualty: A Vietnam Memoir. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012.
Naval and Maritime Chronology 1961-1971. Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1973.