USS Iwo Jima returns to port after malfunction, Navy’s third such incident

In an email to Military.com on Friday, Carter said the ship was at sea conducting training to prepare it for a possible deployment, and the breakdown comes just weeks after Marine Corps began requesting more regular deployments of its Marine units serving aboard ships such as Iwo Jima.

A shipwatcher who goes by the name AirAssets online first noticed the problem when they noticedusing tracking websites, several tugboats navigating open waters off Virginia Beach to meet the vessel. A few hours later, it was Iwo Jima seen returning to Norfolk.

Carter did not elaborate on what went wrong with the ship, but said it was not a problem with the ship’s rudder. However, AirAssets said Military.com in an interview Friday that the ship struggled to stay on course as it returned to Norfolk.

Rudder problems were the same problem that forced the USS Boxer to return from deployment in April just 10 days from port.

In March, a very similar series of events occurred with the USS Wasp, the same class of ship as Iwo Jima and in the same waters off Virginia.

The same ship spotter saw that the Wasp was in trouble and was suddenly turning to port. The observer account reported that the ship suffered damage to the propeller shaft.

Asked about that incident in March, Carter said the ship “discovered an engineering irregularity” that forced it to return to port without confirming or denying a problem with the well.

“30-plus-year-old warships are going to face materiel challenges,” Carter argued at the time, before noting that the commander of the Navy’s surface fleet in the Atlantic “is focused on … how we respond to these challenges”.

Wasp was finally deployed in June, but the Navy’s senior officer, Adm. Lisa Franchetti hinted in April that this could be later than expected, telling reporters that the service is “noting some potential delays at Wasp.”

Meanwhile, Boxer was finally deployed in mid-July. The delay meant the other two ships carrying the bulk of the Marine Expeditionary Units, or MEUs, had to spend months in the Pacific Ocean without the Marines, planes and vehicles Boxer was supposed to carry.

Those delays and breakdowns are set to reignite a point of friction between the Navy and Marine Corps over whether the maritime service can reliably transport Marines to sea so they can fulfill their obligation to be a ready response force.

Last year, then-Navy Commandant Gen. David Berger expressed serious regrets for not being able to have Marines ready to go to the Mediterranean in the midst of two crises: a massive earthquake in Turkey and unrest in Sudan.

“Places like Turkey or, in the last two weeks, in Sudan — I feel like we’ve let the combatant commander down,” Berger told members of the House Armed Services Committee in April 2023.

More recently, in January 2024, another three-star Marine general said that not only are the Navy’s amphibious ships not ready to send Marines around the world in time, but the problem has no short-term solution.

Since then, both Franchetti and the current leader of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric Smith, they tried to present a more united front on this issue.

But just last month, Smith released its annual planning document that they both codified their intention to have a constantly deployed MEU and also noted that the Navy must do more to help the Marine Corps meet that goal.

“It is my intent that the Marine Corps provide geographic combatant commanders with a continuous 3.0 MEU presence,” Smith said in the planning document, before noting that “the term 3.0 refers to the heel-to-toe deployment of an MEU from the East Coast, one MEU from the West Coast, and the 31st MEU from the Forward Deployed Naval Forces (FDNF) in Japan.”

The document went on to point out that its ability to accomplish this goal relies heavily on the Navy having enough amphibious ships to support the Marines, and added that, “in the meantime, (the Marines) must find creative solutions instead of perfect ones . remedies.”

Smith said he would continue to advocate for five Japan-based ships and noted that to “meet the materiel and personnel readiness goals associated with a 3.0 MEU requirement, the United States Navy will likely require increased resources ” in the years to come.