USS Belle Grove (LSD-2) - 1962

1962

Following refresher training in January 1962, Belle Grove sailed for another Pacific deployment on 15 February. During the first three months of the deployment, she shuttled marines and their equipment between Subic Bay and Okinawa. She also participated in Operation Tulungan, a multi-lateral Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) exercise held in the Philippines and designed to deter communist aggression in the region. In May, continued political friction between the communist Pathet Lao and rightist factions in Laos, prompted President John F. Kennedy to order American military forces into neighboring Thailand. That move, symbolizing the American commitment to support the Thai and South Vietnamese governments, began when an attack carrier group steamed into position off Da Nang, South Vietnam. An amphibious ready group (ARG) then proceeded into the Gulf of Siam, and all available amphibious ships assembled in Buckner Bay, Okinawa.

Belle Grove and Talladega supported this contingency operation by lifting the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines, and six helicopters to Subic Bay. When the International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos was signed on 23 July 1962, the Laotian crisis abated, and the ship received orders to help remove the Marines of the 3rd Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) and their equipment from Thailand. Belle Grove, and her sister ship Carter Hall, made two trips to Bangkok, Thailand, before completing this task in early August. After dropping off marines at Subic Bay and Buckner Bay, the ship stopped at Yokosuka, Japan for minor repairs before departing for home on 23 August. She arrived at Long Beach on 11 September.

At the end of a month of leave and upkeep, the ship received emergency orders to load elements of the 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Camp Del Mar. The gradual rise in tension between the United States and Cuba, exacerbated by the Soviet Union's delivery of military assistance to that island, had broken out into a severe crisis on 14 October. A U-2 reconnaissance flight, initially described as "a milk run", detected the presence of offensive nuclear weapon sites on Cuba and prompted President John F. Kennedy to order a naval "quarantine" of the island. Belle Grove, in company with three other dock landing ships, transited the Panama Canal on 5 November and took up station south of Jamaica. Although the immediate crisis passed by 28 October, the ship steamed with elements of Task Group 128 (TG 128) for another three weeks as the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba was confirmed. She departed the West Indies on 2 December and arrived at Long Beach on the 15th in time to enjoy the holiday season in port.