When coalition forces began planning Operation Desert Storm, the Iraqis spent enormous effort fortifying the Kuwaiti coastline. Saddam Hussein believed an American amphibious assault was coming — Marines landing from the sea, the way they always had, the way the history of American amphibious warfare demanded. He was wrong. The landing never came. But the threat of it — maintained by the ships of the U.S. Navy's amphibious force, including USS Nassau (LHA-4) — tied down tens of thousands of Iraqi troops that could not be moved from the coast without risking exactly the landing they feared. USS Nassau never put Marines on the beach at Kuwait. She didn't have to.
The Ship
USS Nassau (LHA-4) is a Tarawa-class amphibious assault ship, the fourth of five ships in that class, commissioned on July 28, 1979, at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The Tarawa class represented a leap in amphibious capability when it was introduced: a large-deck ship that could embark, transport, and launch a Marine landing force using both helicopters and landing craft, supported by fixed-wing aircraft and operating with an organic air wing. Nassau displaced over 39,000 tons fully loaded, carried a crew of roughly 900 Navy personnel, and could embark a Marine battalion landing team of 1,900 Marines with their equipment.
Her standard air complement included CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters for lift, AV-8B Harrier jump jets for close air support and fixed-wing strike, and UH-1N Hueys for utility. The combination gave an LHA commander genuine flexibility: the ability to fight her way to a beach, suppress defenses from the air, and put troops on the ground with organic support.
Desert Shield and the Deception That Won a Battle
Nassau deployed in support of Operation Desert Shield in 1990, embarking Marines of the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (4th MEB) and joining the naval forces assembling in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. As the coalition buildup continued through the fall and into 1991, the amphibious force maintained a highly visible presence off the Kuwaiti coast — conducting exercises, keeping its intentions ambiguous, and making Iraqi defensive planners nervous.
The Iraqis took the bait. Coalition intelligence later assessed that more than eighty thousand Iraqi troops were positioned along the Kuwaiti coast in anticipation of an amphibious assault that never materialized. Those troops — dug into beach fortifications, positioned behind minefields, equipped with artillery and anti-ship missiles — were not available to defend against the ground offensive that came from the west through the Saudi desert. The 4th MEB and the amphibious force had fought and won their part of the war without firing a shot at the beach.
The Air War and Amphibious Support
While the ground campaign was being decided on land, Nassau's air wing contributed to the air campaign. AV-8B Harriers flew strike missions against Iraqi positions in Kuwait, providing the close air support that the Marine ground forces advancing from Saudi Arabia would need when the ground war began. The Harriers' ability to operate from a ship without catapults or arresting gear — vertical and short takeoff, conventional landing — made them uniquely suited to the LHA's deck, and their pilots flew into defended airspace throughout the air campaign.
The ground war, when it came on February 24, 1991, lasted one hundred hours. Nassau and the amphibious force remained offshore through the ceasefire, available if needed, a force-in-being that the coalition commander could commit to the beach at any point. The commitment was never required. The war ended before the beach assault planners had to find out whether their carefully prepared plans would have worked.
Life Aboard an LHA
For the sailors aboard Nassau and the Marines they carried, the desert deployment had a texture unlike the Pacific or Mediterranean cruises that typified peacetime service. The Persian Gulf is a confined, shallow body of water — hot, humid, and, in 1991, the operational center of the most significant military campaign since Vietnam. The sailors who maintained the ship, flew the aircraft, and kept the landing craft ready knew they were a component of something much larger than their own ship. The Iraqis watching the coastline knew it too.
If you served aboard USS Nassau or want to honor someone who did, browse the Nassau 1990-91 Desert Storm collection. The full Nassau collection covers her entire career in the store.
Legacy
USS Nassau's role in Desert Storm illustrated a principle that amphibious forces had demonstrated since World War II: the threat of an amphibious assault is itself a weapon. You don't have to land. You have to be credibly capable of landing, and you have to make the enemy believe you intend to. Nassau and the 4th MEB did exactly that, and in doing so helped shape the conditions that made the coalition's ground victory possible. The beach was never taken because it never had to be. That is not failure. That is precisely how it was supposed to work.