Post Vietnam War and Transfer To Turkish Navy
From 7 September through 1 October 1972 Westchester County operated in logistic support of Mine Flotilla 1. She returned to Yokosuka on 15 October for availability and inspection. The ship made a brief transit to Okinawa, departing on 30 November. She returned to Yokosuka on 5 December 1972 and enjoyed the Christmas holidays while in upkeep status. On 27 January 1973, following the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, the ship was underway for Subic Bay to transport mine counter-measures equipment and Commander, Mine Flotilla One to the Gulf of Tonkin. Due to a breakdown in the cease-fire negotiations, the tank landing ship was ordered to a rendezvous point near Da Nang. Departing the vicinity on 3 March, she continued to work in support of "Operation End Sweep". After availability and shore bombardment exercises at Subic Bay which commenced on 14 March, Westchester County returned to Vietnam in support of "Operation End Sweep" which was completed on 18 July. The ship made stops at Subic Bay and Okinawa before finally arriving at Yokosuka on 30 July. Westchester County was decommissioned on 30 August 1973 and arrived at the Inactive Ship Facility, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington on 30 November of that year. On 27 August 1974 she was turned over to the Turkish Navy and commissioned as Serdar (L-402). Decommissioned by the Turkish Navy in 2011.
Read more about this topic: USS Westchester County (LST-1167)
Famous quotes containing the words post, vietnam, war, transfer, turkish and/or navy:
“My business is stanching blood and feeding fainting men; my post the open field between the bullet and the hospital. I sometimes discuss the application of a compress or a wisp of hay under a broken limb, but not the bearing and merits of a political movement. I make gruel—not speeches; I write letters home for wounded soldiers, not political addresses.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)
“Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1992)
“[W]e must remember that so long as war exists on earth there will be some danger that even the Nation that most ardently desires peace may be drawn into war.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“No sociologist ... should think himself too good, even in his old age, to make tens of thousands of quite trivial computations in his head and perhaps for months at a time. One cannot with impunity try to transfer this task entirely to mechanical assistants if one wishes to figure something, even though the final result is often small indeed.”
—Max Weber (1864–1920)
“A man may grow rich in Turkey even, if he will be in all respects a good subject of the Turkish government.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“People run away from the name subsidy. It is a subsidy. I am not afraid to call it so. It is paid for the purpose of giving a merchant marine to the whole country so that the trade of the whole country will be benefitted thereby, and the men running the ships will of course make a reasonable profit.... Unless we have a merchant marine, our navy if called upon for offensive or defensive work is going to be most defective.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)