USS Casa Grande
1944 Casa Grande-class dock landing ship
USS Casa Grande (LSD-13) was a Casa Grande-class dock landing ship of the United States Navy, named in honor of Casa Grande Ruins National Monument near Coolidge, Arizona.
The ship was originally authorized under the Lend-Lease Act as BAPM-5, the fifth of seven British Mechanized Artillery Transports, to be named HMS Portway (F144).
Reclassified a Landing Ship Dock, LSD-13, on 1 July 1942, the contract for LSD-13 was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia, on 10 September 1942.
Renamed HMS Spear, LSD-13's keel was laid down, on 11 November 1943. While under construction, LSD-13, Rushmore (LSD-14), and Shadwell (LSD-15) were reassigned back to the United States.
The ship was renamed Casa Grande, and, as the first of her class in the U.S. Navy, gave her name to the class.
Casa Grande was launched 11 April 1944, sponsored by Mrs. G. Delapalme; and commissioned 5 June 1944.
Service history
World War II
Sailing from Hampton Roads 19 July 1944, Casa Grande was delayed at Balboa, Panama Canal Zone for repairs en route to Pearl Harbor, where she arrived 21 August. Here she offloaded landing craft brought from the east coast, and loaded men and equipment for the invasion of Yap.
“USS Casa Grande” enters the record as 1944 Casa Grande-class dock landing ship. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Casa, Grande and Grande-class can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“USS Casa Grande” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Casa, Grande and Grande-class provides the most credible route into that argument.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7868122. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1942, 1943 and 1944.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “USS Casa Grande”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow USS Casa Grande primary sources, USS Casa Grande archive and Casa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “USS Casa Grande”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “USS Casa Grande” 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.