Her name: The USS Racine. And now the warship has left us.
Placed in commission in 1971, she visited ports in Chile, Peru, and the Panama Canal Zone. She carried men and cargo to Vietnam, collided with Li Tung Sol, a small fishing vessel, and saw five Western Pacific deployments.
“In January 1981, Racine was assigned to the Naval Reserve Force with 60 percent of the crew active duty and 40 percent of the crew reservists. After 15 January 1981, Racine was assigned to Surface Squadron One homeport of Long Beach, California,” her Wikipedia page reads.
Ultimately, the Newport-class tank landing ship sat idle in Pearl Harbor from 1993 until 2016.
Now, she has met her demise. On July 12, she served as target practice from aircraft, a submarine, and land assets as part of a sinking exercise. And units from Australia, Japan, and the United States participated in the sinking.
The Ex-Racine won’t have a gravesite. She rests in her watery grave 15,000 deep about 55 nautical miles north of Kaua’i, Hawaii, according to Wikipedia.
Farewell USS Racine.
The area will see 22,000 jobs created over the next few years. So how will Racine County re-tool its skills?
Racine County Eye just received an investigative journalism grant and we’re focusing on barriers to employment for our Eye on Employment page. So we’re looking for people and business owners to tell us what they see are the biggest barriers to employment are in Racine County. Send yours to denise@racinecountyeye.com and put JOBS in the subject line.
Here’s more about the project:
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