INDIANAPOLIS -- The third U.S. Navy ship to bear the USS Indiana name will be commissioned next week in Port Canaveral, Florida.
The USS Indiana (SSN-789) will come online as the Navy’s newest fast-attack submarine, and the 16th Virginia-class submarine in the fleet.
“Designed to operate in both coastal and deep-ocean environments, Indiana will present leadership with a broad and unique range of capabilities, including anti-submarine warfare; anti-surface ship warfare; strike warfare; special operation forces (SOF) support; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; irregular warfare; and mine warfare missions,” the Navy said in a release Thursday.
The first USS Indiana (BB-1) was a battleship commissioned during the Spanish-American War in 1898. The ship saw service off and on through World War I, until finally be decommissioned for the final time in 1919.
A South Dakota-class battleship (BB-58) launched in November 1941 then became the second ship to bear the USS Indiana name. That ship served throughout the remainder of WWII in the Pacific Theater, including during the invasion of Okinawa. The ship was decommissioned in 1947. Pieces of the dismantled ship remain on display in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Bloomington and elsewhere around the state.
The latest USS Indiana will be commissioned on Sept. 29 as the first submarine to bear the Indiana name. It will be stationed with the Naval Ordinance Test Unit at the Navy Port at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and tasked with assisting in the testing and evaluation of Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missile systems.
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