In the summer of 2006, a war that nobody had fully anticipated broke out between Israel and Hezbollah along the Lebanese border, and approximately 25,000 American citizens found themselves in a country that was under air attack, with the Beirut airport closed and no commercial way out. The United States Navy responded the way it always responds to a crisis near the sea: it sent ships. USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) was part of the amphibious task force that executed one of the largest noncombatant evacuation operations in American history — a mission that demonstrated, in circumstances that had nothing to do with combat, exactly why the Navy builds large-deck amphibious ships with the capabilities they carry.
The Ship
USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, commissioned on June 30, 2001, and named for the Battle of Iwo Jima — the February–March 1945 assault on the heavily fortified Japanese island that cost nearly 7,000 American lives and produced one of the most enduring images in American military history: the flag-raising on Mount Suribachi. The fifth ship to bear the name Iwo Jima, she carries a history associated with Marine Corps valor, amphibious assault, and the specific kind of courage that taking ground from the sea requires. She was homeported at Mayport, Florida.
The 2006 Lebanon War and the Evacuation
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began in July 2006 — triggered by a cross-border raid and the capture of two Israeli soldiers — rapidly escalated into a full-scale air campaign by Israel against Lebanese infrastructure and Hezbollah positions, and rocket attacks by Hezbollah against northern Israel. The Beirut airport was struck; the main highway south was damaged; and tens of thousands of foreigners — including roughly 25,000 American citizens — found themselves unable to leave through normal channels.
The Navy's Amphibious Task Force 59, operating in the eastern Mediterranean, was tasked with the noncombatant evacuation operation. Iwo Jima and the other ships of the task force moved to positions off the Lebanese coast and began the process of extracting American citizens and eligible foreign nationals from Beirut. The evacuees were transported from shore to ship by helicopter and by landing craft, processed aboard the ships, and transferred to Cyprus and other destinations. The operation ran through July and into August 2006; over the course of the evacuation, more than 14,000 Americans were moved out of Lebanon.
An Amphibious Ship's Full Range
The 2006 Lebanon evacuation demonstrated something that the Navy knew but that the public rarely sees: that the capabilities built into an amphibious assault ship for forcible entry operations are equally valuable in a humanitarian crisis. The helicopters that can insert Marines into a defended beach can extract civilians from a besieged city. The well deck that can launch landing craft for an amphibious assault can receive small boats carrying evacuees. The medical facilities that exist to treat combat casualties can triage and treat civilians in shock and civilians with medical conditions who have been waiting days for evacuation. Iwo Jima's crew used every system on the ship for purposes that the architects of those systems had at least partly anticipated — and proved the value of the capability in front of a watching world.
Life Aboard During the NEO
For the crew of Iwo Jima, the evacuation was a high-tempo operation of a kind that differed from combat in its human texture but not in its operational demands. The ship was processing hundreds of civilians per day — people who arrived frightened, disoriented, and grateful; who ranged from dual citizens with Lebanese family members to American tourists who had chosen the worst possible summer for a vacation; who needed food, water, medical attention, and reassurance that someone had come for them. The crew provided all of it, adapting their ship's warfighting infrastructure to the humanitarian mission with the flexibility that the Navy's training is designed to produce.
If you served aboard USS Iwo Jima or want to honor someone who did, The Ship's Store carries collections for the ships of the Navy — cruise shirts, license plate frames, and more.
Legacy
USS Iwo Jima continues to serve more than two decades after her commissioning. The 2006 Lebanon evacuation is one of the defining missions of her career — a mission that demonstrated, as clearly as any combat deployment, why the United States builds amphibious ships and sustains the forward presence that allows them to respond when crises occur. The ship named for one of the hardest battles in Marine Corps history spent her summer of 2006 in a different kind of service: not taking a beach, but saving the people caught between someone else's war and the sea. Both are what the Navy is for.