Wreck of USS Monticello (LSD-35)

 military, shipwreck, United States Navy

USS Monticello was the eighth and final member of the Thomaston Class of Dock Landing Ships (LSD's) built for the US Navy, laid down at Ingalls Pascagoula Shipyard in June 1955 and commissioned into US Pacific Fleet service in March 1957.

Monticello and her crews spent the first ten years of her service alternating between amphibious exercises and deployments with the US 7th Fleet in Far Eastern waters, including a deployment to Christmas Island in 1962 to serve as the command ship during nuclear weapons testing. After operating with members of the US Atlantic Fleet from late 1964 to mid 1965, Monticello returned to the Pacific where she received orders for her first combat deployment to Vietnam.

Arriving in theatre in October 1965, Monticello and her crews would become heavily involved in the Vietnam War, where she would earn 11 Campaign Stars for her service which lasted from 1965 through the US withdrawal in 1972. The battle-tested ship returned stateside following the Vietnam War, where she continued her routine operations with the US Pacific Fleet in amphibious exercises and deployments with the US 7th Fleet until her decommissioning in October 1985.

Sold for scrapping in 1991, the Monticello was repossesed by the US Navy after her scrapper defaulted on its contract and she was laid up in the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in 1998. After remaining in reserve for twelve years, USS Monticello was towed out of Suisun Bay in June 2010 to Hawaii where she was used as a target during RIMPAC 2010 exercises.

Towed to this location on July 14th, Monticello was set adrift at 0400hrs and was attacked by P-3c Orion aircraft of VP-4 and VP-47 firing both Maverick and Harpoon missiles, US Air Force and US Navy aircraft using guided and unguided munitions and finally naval gunfire from US and Canadian ships. Remaining defiantly afloat but on fire and taking on water by the end of the days exercises, the Monticello was sunk by scuttling charges in the late evening of July 14th, 2010.

www.ussmonticello.com/
www.navsource.org/archives/10/12/1235.htm