A week and a half after leaving on deployment, the trouble-plagued amphibious assault ship USS Boxer has returned to San Diego to deal with an unspecified engineering problem.
The “mini” aircraft carrier docked in San Diego on Thursday after offloading elements of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is based at Camp Pendleton, the U.S. Naval Institute reported.
The Navy confirmed the report to The San Diego Union-Tribune, saying in a statement, “USS Boxer is returning to San Diego to undergo additional maintenance in support of its deployment in the Indo-Pacific region.
“Boxer departed San Diego on April 1 for an Indo-Pacific deployment and was conducting integration exercises with the MV-22 Osprey (aircraft) in the 3rd Fleet area of operations (off Southern California).”
The Naval Institute said it appeared that the 843-foot Boxer was having rudder problems. The ship had been scheduled to meet up with two other San Diego-based amphibious warships, the USS Somerset and USS Harpers Ferry.
The Boxer had just begun its first deployment in five years. It had experienced significant delays due to a variety of engineering problems that the Navy had attributed to such things as underskilled workers, complacency and poor leadership.
