The USNS Richard E. Burke (T-AKE-4) departed Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam recently, ending the first visit by a Navy ship to the port in 38 years, Military Sealift Command said.
The Byrd spent a week in a shipyard to undergo maintenance and repairs, including an underwater hull cleaning, polishing of the ship’s propeller, and work on piping, the command said.
Cam Ranh Bay, which lies 180 milies north of Ho Chi Minh City, was one of the largest in-country U.S. military facilities during the Vietnam War, the command said. The United States normalized relations with Vietnam in 1995.
“The U.S. Navy’s return to a port symbolic of the Vietnam conflict proves that our two countries have come a long way in building relations over recent years,” Capt. Lee Apsley, the Byrd‘s civil service master, said.