Cuban Missile Crisis and Dominican Republic Operations
On 23 October 1962, President Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine of Cuba in response to the presence of Soviet missiles on the soil of that island nation. Yancey sortied in support of the American operations in the Caribbean, and remained on station until the missiles were removed and tensions were relaxed. Over the next few years, Yancey made regular deployments to the Mediterranean to take part in joint exercises with NATO forces.
In April 1965, Yancey was ordered to the Dominican Republic to support Operation Power Pack, the code name for the United States' intervention in the Dominican Republic. The attack cargo ship arrived at Santo Domingo, the capital city, on 30 April. Yancey loaded nearly 600 evacuees from 21 nations. Among those on board the ship were the daughter of William Tapley Bennett Jr., the United States Ambassador to the Dominican Republic; the Belgian Ambassador to the Dominican Republic; sixteen nuns from the Dominican Order; and several large families. Yancey's officers and crew vacated their quarters to allow room for female passengers and children, and many slept on the decks of the ship during the passage to San Juan, Puerto Rico. One of the passengers gave birth during the short trip, and gave her son the middle name of Yancey in honor of the ship.
After debarking her passengers at San Juan on 1 May, the ship took on supplies needed by the American ground forces in Santo Domingo: gasoline, oil, and ammunition. She docked in Santo Domingo on 2 May and exchanged her cargo for 450 more evacuees to be taken to San Juan. In all, Yancey carried almost a quarter of those fleeing the Dominican Republic. She returned to Norfolk soon thereafter, and resumed her role of training and cruising off the eastern seaboard and into the Caribbean basin. On 1 January 1969, Yancey was redesignated as LKA-93.
Read more about this topic: USS Yancey (AKA-93)
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