USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6)

History

USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) was a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship of the United States Navy commissioned on 15 August 1998. Like the previous five Wasp-class ships, Bonhomme Richard was designed to embark, deploy, and land elements of a Marine Corps landing force in amphibious assault operations by helicopter, landing craft, and amphibious vehicle, and, if needed, to act as a light aircraft carrier.

LHD-6 was the third ship of the United States Navy to bear the name first given by John Paul Jones to his Continental Navy frigate, named in French "Good Man Richard" in honor of Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the publisher of Poor Richard's Almanack who at the time served as U.S. ambassador to France.

On 12 July 2020, a fire started on a lower vehicle-storage deck while the ship was undergoing maintenance at Naval Base San Diego. It took four days for firefighters to extinguish the fire, which injured at least 63 sailors and civilians and severely damaged the ship. After a lengthy investigation into the cause of the fire, a sailor was charged with arson but was acquitted at trial. Repairs to the ship were estimated to take up to seven years and cost up to $3.2 billion, so the ship was decommissioned on 15 April 2021 and sold for scrap.

Text from Wikipedia: USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6), CC BY-SA 4.0, lightly trimmed.

Wars and campaigns

From Wikidata (CC0).

Key dates

1. 1992
   Ingalls Shipbuilding received the contract to build the ship on 11 December 1992 and laid down her keel on 18 April 1995.
2. 2000
   From 24 January to 24 July 2000, the ship made the first Western Pacific (WESTPAC) deployment of any U.S. Navy ship in the 2000s as part of Operation Southern Watch.
3. 2005
   On 4 January 2005, the ship helped airlift relief supplies to the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.
4. 2013
   After the exercise, the ship sailed for Sydney, arriving on 16 August 2013.
5. 2015
   whereas the program unit cost of an America-class LHA (landing helicopter assault) was expected to be about $3.3 billion in 2015
6. 2017
   On 5 August 2017, a U.S. Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 265 with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit took off from Bonhomme Richard and then crashed in Shoalwater Bay on the east coast of Australia.
7. 2020
   On 26 August 2020, news outlets reported that a sailor from the ship was being investigated for arson, but no motive had been identified, and no one had been charged.
8. 2022
   On 16 July 2022, the Navy issued a letter of censure to retired vice admiral Richard Brown, commander of Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, at the time of the fire.
9. 2022
   On 19 September 2022, Mays's trial began at Naval Base San Diego.

Dates and events quoted from the same Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Records that place someone aboard this ship

A ship history doesn't name everyone who served. These records do:

• Navy muster rolls, 1939–1949 (National Archives guide)
• Deck logs: how to get them (Naval History and Heritage Command)
• Crew lists research guide (NHHC)
• Search the National Archives Catalog for “USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6)”

More history

• Naval History and Heritage Command (DANFS)
• Wikipedia: USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6)