Osage-class vehicle landing ship

The Osage class was a group of four vehicle landing ships that Ingalls Shipbuilding began at Pascagoula, Mississippi, for the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Ingalls hull list gives them as net tenders with the hull numbers AN-1 to AN-4, named Monitor, Montauk, Osage and Saugus, all of 4,626 tons and laid down between October 1941 and July 1942. While they were building the Navy redesignated them as transports and then, on 21 April 1944, as vehicle landing ships, LSV-5, LSV-6, LSV-3 and LSV-4, with Osage the lead ship of the class. Because of delays in construction, Monitor went under her own power to Todd Shipyards in Brooklyn for completion, while Osage and Saugus were completed by the Tampa Shipbuilding Company. A vehicle landing ship carried troops, cargo and amphibious trucks to an invasion coast. Monitor, launched in January 1943 and commissioned in June 1944, loaded troops and DUKWs for the landings at Leyte Gulf, Lingayen Gulf and Okinawa and then joined Operation Magic Carpet, bringing troops home. All four were laid up in the reserve fleet and scrapped in the 1970s. Ingalls is now a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries.