USS DeKalb County
1944 LST-542-class tank landing ship
USS DeKalb County (LST-715) was an LST-542-class tank landing ship built for the United States Navy during World War II. Named after counties in six states, it was the only U.S. Naval vessel to bear the name.
LST-715 was laid down on 7 June 1944 at Jeffersonville, Indiana by the Jeffersonville Boat & Machine Company; launched on 20 July 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Loudie S. Moffatt; and commissioned on 15 August 1944.
Jack Greenberg (1924–2016), who was later to become the primary lawyer of the American civil rights movement, served as a lieutenant junior grade (USN) on the DeKalb County, fighting at both Iwo Jima and Okinawa.
Service history
World War II
During World War II, LST-715 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific theater and participated in the following operations: assault and occupation of Iwo Jima (February and March, 1945) and the assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto (May and June, 1945). Following the war, LST-715 performed occupation duty in the Far East until mid-September 1945. LST-715 was decommissioned on 17 April 1946 at Manicani Island, Republic of the Philippines.
United States Army
The ship was transferred to the United States Army Transportation Corps on 28 June 1946. Commissioned USAT LST-715 on 29 June 1946, the ship was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 29 September 1947.
Korean War
Reacquired by the Navy on 25 July 1950, the ship was reinstated to the Naval Register on 10 August 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS DeKalb County” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.