Mayport welcomes USS Indianapolis to new homeport

Dozens are sailors are home just in time for the holidays

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Navy’s newest combat ship has a new home just in time for the holidays.

Dozens of sailors on the USS Indianapolis arrived in Mayport on Tuesday where they reunited with eager family members. The crew was deployed four months ago in July. They were greeted with signs, plenty of smiles and hugs.

This is the Navy’s 19th littoral combat ship capable of defeating threats such as mines and quiet diesel submarines. The ship also has a flight deck, where it can launch helicopters. You can see it in action in this video released by the defense department before it was commissioned last month, along Lake Michigan in Indiana.

The USS Indianapolis, designated LCS 17, honors Indiana’s state capital and largest city. It is the fourth ship to bear the name.

In 1945, the second ship to bear that name was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and sunk. Only 317 sailors, of its nearly 1,200 crew members, were rescued and survived.

Mayport will serve as the Indianapolis’ homeport.


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