Length:26"

USS Essex (LHD-2) is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship built at what is now the Northrop Grumman Shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and commissioned on 17 October 1992 while moored at North Island NAS beside the Kitty Hawk (CV-63). Dick Cheney, then the Secretary of Defense in the first Bush Administration, spoke at the commissioning ceremony.