Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ship


The Iwo Jima-class amphibious assault ships of the United States Navy were the first amphibious assault ships designed and built as dedicated helicopter carriers, capable of operating up to 20 helicopters to carry up to 1,800 marines ashore. They were named for battles featuring the United States Marine Corps, starting with the Battle of Iwo Jima. The first ship of the class was commissioned in 1961, and the last was decommissioned in 2002. Because these ships bore the hull classification of LPH they have often been referred to as "Landing Platform, Helicopter".
Ships of the class:
NameHull numberBuilderLaid downLaunchedCommissionedFate
LPH-2Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton2 April 195917 September 196026 August 1961Broken up at Brownsville, 1996
LPH-3Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia1 April 196019 August 196114 April 1962Sunk as target, 6 June 2002
LPH-7Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia1 September 196116 March 196320 July 1963Sunk as target, 19 May 2005
LPH-9Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia15 November 196222 August 196416 January 1965Sunk as target, 16 October 2001
LPH-10Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula15 June 196431 July 19656 August 1966Broken up at Brownsville, 2018
LPH-11Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Philadelphia1 March 19663 February 196816 November 1968Sunk as target, 10 July 2010
LPH-12Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascasgoula8 April 196824 May 196920 June 1970Sunk as target, 5 December 2004

Popular culture

One of the Iwo Jima class ships served as the fieldsite in Edwin Hutchins's classic cognitive science study Cognition in the Wild. Although Hutchins does not mention the ship class by name, on p. 7 he characterizes it as a amphibious helicopter carrier.