HERMITAGE (LSD-34) was launched 12 June 1956 by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp., Pascagoula, Miss., sponsored by Mrs. Alfred M. Pride, wife of Vice Admiral Alfred M. Pride; and commissioned 14 December 1956, Captain Leonard A. Parker in command.
While on shakedown in the Caribbean, HERMITAGE was informally inspected by Admiral Arleigh Burke, then Chief of Naval Operations. After local operations out of Norfolk, she sailed for the Mediterranean in late August to join the Sixth Fleet. HERMITAGE participated in exercises with NATO units and visited Sicily, Crete, Turkey, Italy, Greece, and Spain before returning to the United States 16 November 1957. Local operations primarily with fast amphibious helicopter assault equipment and tactics occupied her until November 1959. With a cargo of Presidential helicopters embarked, HERMITAGE sailed to Karachi 2 December via the Atlantic, Med, Suez Canal, and Red and Arabian Seas to furnish quick and safe transportation for President Dwight D. Eisenhower on his Asian and European tour. Mission successfully completed, she returned home via barcelona 17 January 1960.
Foreign waters called HERMITAGE by the end of the year as she sailed 20 November as flagship for Admiral A. L. Reed, CONSOLANT, for a good will cruise to South America and Africa. In the midst of the cruise, HERMITAGE was diverted 19 January 1969 to carry grain to the Congo to help the United Nations combat starvation in that revolution torn country. Other points which she visited included Recife, Brazil; Monrovia, Liberia; Lome, Togo; Conakry, Guinea; Freetown, Sierra Leone; Luanda, Angola; Las Palmas, Canary islands; and Bathurst, Gambia. Relieved as flagship 3 May by SPIEGEL GROVE, HERMITAGE returned to Virginia 16 May and soon resumed her pattern of operations and exercises off the Virginia Capes and in the Caribbean.
When the presence of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba threatened war in October 1962, HERMITAGE sailed to Guantanamo to transport Marines to that threatened base and underline America's determination to maintain her position there. A second cruise to the Med, May -October 1963, took HERMITAGE to Naples, Athens, Genoa, Cannes, Sardinia, Malta, and Rota as well as other ports she had visited previously.
From scrapbook compiled by Michael Sheehy. Courtesy of C.J. and Julene DeHart.
