When Operation Iraqi Freedom began in March 2003, USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) was operating in the Persian Gulf as part of the amphibious task force supporting the coalition’s military campaign. Her Marines — from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit — flew combat missions, provided helicopter-borne logistical support, and conducted the wide range of operations that an amphibious ship with a full MEU can execute across the spectrum of conflict. Kearsarge was the embodiment of the joint force’s need for a flexible, sea-based capability in a campaign where the ground situation was moving faster than fixed bases could always support.
The Ship
USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, commissioned on October 16, 1993, and named for a long tradition of American warships bearing the name — most famously, the USS Kearsarge (1861), which sank the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama in a legendary battle off Cherbourg, France, in 1864. At more than eight hundred feet long and capable of carrying a reinforced Marine battalion with its full complement of aviation and ground combat elements, Kearsarge represents the concept of sea-based power projection in its most complete form. She was homeported at Norfolk, Virginia, and has served in virtually every major American military operation of the post-Cold War era.
OIF 2003: The Amphibious Component
The amphibious forces in the Persian Gulf during Operation Iraqi Freedom performed a dual function: they provided the coalition with genuine amphibious assault capability that forced Iraqi planners to account for a seaborne threat, tying down defensive forces along the coast of southern Iraq, while simultaneously serving as a mobile base for Marine aviation assets that supported the ground campaign advancing north from Kuwait. Kearsarge’s helicopters — CH-46 Sea Knights, CH-53 Sea Stallions, UH-1 Hueys, and AH-1 Super Cobras — flew combat missions throughout the theater, providing troop transport, fire support, and casualty evacuation that the joint force required as the campaign developed.
The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit embarked aboard Kearsarge brought a ground combat element, an aviation combat element, and a combat service support element — the full range of capabilities that an MEU is designed to provide. The sailors of Kearsarge’s crew operated the ship, managed the flight deck, maintained the well deck and landing craft, and provided the logistical backbone that kept the Marines operational across the weeks of high-tempo operations that characterized the early phase of OIF.
The Transition to Stability Operations
In the weeks following the fall of Baghdad, Kearsarge’s capabilities were reoriented toward the more complex, ambiguous phase of operations that followed the initial combat campaign. Amphibious ships are among the most flexible platforms in the Navy’s inventory — their combination of aviation assets, well deck, and command facilities makes them suitable for everything from forcible entry to humanitarian assistance. As OIF transitioned from a combat campaign to an occupation, Kearsarge’s assets were available for whatever the theater commander required, including civil affairs support, medical assistance, and logistics operations that conventional warships couldn’t replicate.
Life Aboard With an MEU Embarked
A Wasp-class LHD with a full MEU embarked is one of the most densely populated naval vessels in the world. The ship’s company of over a thousand sailors shares a hull with two thousand or more Marines, all of them occupying every available space and competing for every available resource — berthing, mess decks, gym equipment, shower time. The sailors and Marines develop a working relationship that is part professional partnership, part mutual bewilderment, part the particular affection that comes from spending months at sea with people who depend on you for survival. Veterans of amphibious deployments describe the experience in terms that are different from any other kind of naval service — more densely human, more immediately connected to the land warfare mission that the whole enterprise is designed to enable.
If you served aboard USS Kearsarge or want to honor someone who did, browse The Ship’s Store — cruise shirts, license plate frames, and more.
Legacy
USS Kearsarge continues to serve, more than three decades after her commissioning. Her 2003 OIF deployment is one of many in a career that has included Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the Balkans, and multiple Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf rotations. The ship named for the vessel that sank the Alabama has been present at every major American military operation of the post-Cold War era, carrying Marines to the places where the nation has required them. The tradition that name carries — aggressive, capable, present — defines the ship as accurately as the hull number.