USS Hinsdale (APA-120) was a Haskell-class attack transport in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946. She was scrapped in 1974.
History
Hinsdale was built and used during World War II and was of the VC2-S-AP5 Victory ship design type and was named for Hinsdale County, Colorado. She was launched by the California Shipbuilding Corporation, Wilmington, Los Angeles, 22 July 1944; sponsored by Mrs. M. B. Harper; and commissioned 15 October 1944.
Iwo Jima
After shakedown in the San Diego-San Pedro area, the new attack transport sailed for the Pacific, reaching Pearl Harbor 12 December with 175 passengers. The war in the Pacific was steadily advancing across the ocean toward the Japanese home islands, and on 27 December 1944 Hinsdale embarked some 1,200 marines for the Iwo Jima invasion, a prelude to the invasion of Japan herself. Acting as flagship for Transport Division 44, she spent nearly a month of intensive practice-landings in preparation for the assault. Hinsdale sailed from Hawaii 27 January 1945, pausing at Saipan to join a huge transport flotilla, and arrived off Iwo Jima's rock bound heights at dawn on D-Day, 19 February.
Hinsdale'''s leatherneck passengers swarmed ashore with the first wave of the invasion forces, and she remained in the Iwo Jima area over a week embarking and disembarking troops and valuable cargo. Some of her most important work was as an auxiliary hospital ship, caring for the seriously wounded. Disembarking troops, offloading cargo, and tending the injured all took place under continuous mortar and artillery fire from well-entrenched Japanese shore batteries, but Hinsdale had only one close call. On the morning of 25 February, a projectile burst close aboard the transport, killing a Marine captain standing on deck and wounding several others. On 27 February, Hinsdale sailed from Iwo Jima, stopping at Saipan for fuel, and reached Guam 3 March to disembark 166 casualties.