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USS ''Rushmore'' (LSD-14) was a ''Casa Grande''-class dock landing ship of the United States Navy. She was the named in honor of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The ship was originally authorized under the Lend-Lease Act as BAPM-6, the sixth of seven British Mechanized Artillery Transports. Reclassified a Landing Ship Dock, LSD-14, on 1 July 1942, the contract for LSD-14 was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Virginia, on 10 September 1942. She was laid down on 31 December 1943, originally to be named HMS ''Sword'', and later HMS ''Swashway'' (F145). While under construction, LSD-14, as well as -13 and -15, were reassigned back to the United States. The ship was launched as ''Rushmore'' on 10 May 1944, sponsored by Miss Eleanor Vreelan Blewitt; and commissioned on 3 July 1944, Lieutenant Commander E. A. Jansen, USNR, in command. == 1944 – 1946 == Following shakedown in the Chesapeake Bay, landing ship dock ''Rushmore'' departed Norfolk on 5 August 1944 for the Pacific where she participated in four amphibious landings: the Battle of Leyte in October 1944; of Palawan in February 1945; of Mindanao in March 1945; and of Tarakan, Borneo, in May 1945. ''Rushmore'' entered Leyte Gulf early in the morning of 20 October, and after discharging her LCMs from her boat well in one of the first waves to hit Yellow Beach near Dulag, Leyte, acted as repair ship for damaged landing craft. At Palawan on 28 February 1945, she landed Army-manned LCMs and other craft loaded with personnel and equipment of the 167th Field Artillery of the U.S. 8th Army. At Mindanao she carried a record 867 men for a 10 March landing on a beach north of Zamboanga City. For the invasion of Tarakan on 1 May, ''Rushmore'' carried U.S. Army-manned LCMs loaded with Australian troops and light tanks. The Australian troops were a battalion of the famed "Rats of Tobruk" which had helped to chase German General Erwin Rommel out of Africa. During this landing, ''Rushmore'' was hit by a Japanese torpedo fired from the beach, which fortunately glanced off her hull without exploding or causing damage. Returning to the Philippines, ''Rushmore'' loaded a 137-foot Japanese army submarine ''Yu 3'' which she carried to San Francisco to serve as a display to help sell war bonds. In the United States from 2 June to 27 June, ''Rushmore'' next carried landing craft from base to base in the South Pacific and was in Pearl Harbor when the war ended. After the war, ''Rushmore'' operated in the Far East, particularly in occupied Japanese waters. She decommissioned 16 August 1946 and was mothballed in Pascagoula, Mississippi. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「USS Rushmore (LSD-14)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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