Year 1959

In April 1959, in April, the Landing Ship of the US Navy Fort Mandan (LSD 21) came to Sanremo.

It bore the name of the Fort where in 1804/1805 the North American explorers Lewis and Clarck wintered and which was located in what would become North Dakota along the Missouri River.

The ship participated in the Korean War and was part of the Sixth American Mediterranean Fleet from October 1952 to January 1953 and then from February to August 1959. (and it was in this second period that it visited Sanremo).

In 1971 it was sold to the Hellenic Navy where it took the name of Nafkratousa.

She embarked various types of landing craft: 5 LCT, 14 LCM of 1500 tons, 47 DUKW and 41 LVT. 


In July 1959, while he was visiting the French port of Séte, his sailors worked with the French fire brigade to put out the fire on the Italian tanker Ombrina. An event reported in this newspaper clipping.

There are those who swear they saw the US Navy aircraft carrier Forrestal visiting the roadstead in Sanremo.

Someone had even seen her moored at the West Pier !!!!.  Who swears to have seen the USS Randolph!!!

Well, I don't swear anything, they certainly didn't come either for me, let alone moored at the Western Pier (do you see an aircraft carrier of 81,000 tons entering the port?)

What I can say is that I remember the visit of the Saratoga, a Forrestal Class aircraft carrier of 81,000 tons, also fully loaded, which came to Sanremo before 1959, before I kept the Diario del Movimento Navi and the postcard confirms it.

(Personal note by Dino Taulaigo).

Also in 1959, in February, a team of 4 US Navy destroyers, the USS "Hank" (DD702), "English" (DD696), "Soley" (DD707) and the "John R. Pierce" (DD5753), dropped anchor in Sanremo.

(as the author noted in his diary "Navi Militari a Sanremo" when he was just 11 years old !!).