America Has Never Had A Ship Like The USS Ponce [PHOTOS]

Ordered by the U.S. Navy more than 45 years ago and cruising the world’s oceans since 1971, the USS Ponce (pronounced pon-say) was given a new lease on life in March of this year.

It was almost literally pulled from the scrapyard, when CENTCOM Commander General James Mattis cancelled the Ponce’s decommissioning and ordered updates fitting its new role in the Persian Gulf.

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Almost immediately The Washington Post reported the hastily retrofitted Ponce was to be a commando base for U.S. special forces, but that was quickly quelled by the Pentagon.

Now listed as an Afloat Forward Staging Base, Interim — the former amphibious assault ship is the first U.S. floating base ever for military and humanitarian operations.

These are the things I knew before I arrived on deck of the Ponce early Friday morning packed into a MH-53 Sea Dragon helicopter with about a dozen other people from the media, and a handful of Navy public affairs officers.

What I learned while onboard, is that the Ponce is manned by a limited U.S. Navy crew almost entirely pulled from other commands and serving temporary duty to support the Ponce’s mission.

That mission seems largely to serve in support of the four permanent U.S. mine countermeasure ships in the Persian Gulf, but not entirely.

The Ponce also stores forward materiel for various branches of the U.S. military, according to civilian crew I spoke with. The ship is staffed largely by civilian seamen and one also told me he believes SEALs are a constant part of the crew.

When Navy officials were asked about the presence of SEALs onboard, they said they could neither confirm or deny the Navy special force’s presence.

But it makes sense, as the Ponce hosts many different training missions for many different groups within the Navy.

This week, that training mission is the IMCMEX 2012, reportedly the largest mine clearing effort ever performed in this part of the world.

Keeping the Persian Gulf, and the Strait of Hormuz, safe and free of underwater mines that could hamper commerce is part of the Ponce’s objective.

From what I saw, the military crew is in a state of constant training and readiness for mine countermeasures. From enlisted seamen in the well deck who told me they consistently train with anti-mine hardware, to oceanographers, who hold permanent positions that evaluate data picked up by sophisticated mine sweeping equipment.

They do it all on a ship that’s more than 40 years old, with what the Ponce’s Captain Rogers told us was a modest $60 million worth of upgrades.

To build a new ship to do the same thing, the Captain said, would cost billions. Capt. Rogers was good enough to allow us the run of his ship and personally guided us through spaces never before seen by the public.

The following photos show some of what we saw.

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