USS Nitro (AE-23)

Leaving Davisville on 24 April 1972, Nitro stopped at Naval Weapons Station Earle to top off weapons stores. As the ship left port to begin the transit to Vietnam, seven sailors jumped off the ship in protest of the war. A trailing Coast Guard cutter collected the sailors and returned them to Nitro.^[2] Five days later Nitro transited the Panama Canal for the first time.^{[3][citation needed]}

From May 1972 through February 1973 the Nitro made a series of line swings off the coast of both South and North Vietnam. On 28 June while conducting underway replenishment with the USS Oriskany, the carrier collided with Nitro with minimum damage to both ships. Nitro continued to conduct replenishment operations, including replenishment for the carriers during the 11-day "Christmas bombings" designed to bring North Vietnam back to the bargaining table in Paris. After a stop in Japan and other ports Nitro returned to Davisville on 12 March 1973.^{[citation needed]}

While operating in the Med during the spring of 1981, Nitro suffered a class "B" fire in the engineering space on 1 June 1981 which caused a significant amount of damage to the entire starboard side of the engineering space and many other spaces due to subsequent fires. Six personnel were injured. Nitro was towed to Souda Bay, Crete, by the USNS Neosho where she started emergency repairs and off-loaded ammunition. The ship was then towed to Hellenic Shipyard in Athens by the USS Edenton where she underwent a 30-day availability for extensive repairs prior to returning to operations in the Med. Nitro then steamed back to the US, where she underwent major refitting in the Brooklyn Naval Yard.^{[citation needed]}

After continuing her alternating service with the 2nd and 6th Fleets into the 1990s Nitro was decommissioned on 28 April 1995 and struck from the Naval Register on 14 August of the same year. She was laid up in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet, Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Portsmouth (Virginia, USA). On 31 March 2000 she was turned over to the Maritime Administration for lay up in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, James River, Fort Eustis, Virginia. In July 2008, the Nitro was sold to Esco Marine of Brownsville, Tx. for scrapping.^{[citation needed]}

•  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.