USS Garrett County
1944 LST-542-class tank landing ship
USS Garrett County (LST-786) was an LST-542-class tank landing ship built for the United States Navy during World War II. Named after Garrett County, Maryland (), she was the only U.S. Naval vessel to bear the name.
Service history
LST-786 was laid down on 21 May 1944 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by the Dravo Corporation; launched on 22 July 1944; sponsored by Mrs. E. B. Keckler; and commissioned on 28 August 1944.
World War II, 1944–1946
During World War II, LST-786 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific theater and participated in the assault and occupation of Iwo Jima from 12 to 28 February 1945, and the assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto in May and June 1945. Following the war, she performed occupation duty in the Far East and saw service in China until mid-December 1945. LST-786 was decommissioned on 9 July 1946 at Astoria, Oregon and assigned to the Columbia River Group of the Pacific Reserve Fleet. On 1 July 1955 the ship was redesignated USS Garrett County (LST-786).
Vietnam War, 1966–1971
Recommissioned on 15 October 1966 at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. Garrett County saw extensive service during the Vietnam War, operating as part of Operation Game Warden, a brown-water navy effort to keep the rivers free of Viet Cong infiltration. Four LSTs were recommissioned to support river patrol operations with the intent of keeping three ships on-station at any one time supporting a River Division of 10 Patrol Boat, River, a Detachment of 2 UH-1 Helicopter Gunships of HC-1, later HAL-3 Seawolves and a SEAL Platoon.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “USS Garrett County” as 1944 LST-542-class tank landing ship. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as 1944 LST-542-class tank landing ship. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q10386893. The first chronological checks are 1944, 1946, 1945 and 1955.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Garrett 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.