USS Thomaston (LSD-28) was the lead ship of her class of dock landing ship of the United States Navy. She was named for Thomaston, Maine, the home of General Henry Knox, the first Secretary of War to serve under the United States Constitution. Thomaston (LSD-28) was laid down on 3 March 1953 at Pascagoula, Mississippi, by the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp.; launched on 9 February 1954, sponsored by Mrs. Mathias B. Gardner; and commissioned on 17 September 1954. 1955–1964 Following shakedown in the Caribbean, Thomaston transited the Panama Canal and joined the Pacific Fleet Amphibious Force. From July through October 1955, Thomaston participated in the Arctic Resupply Project, provisioning stations on the Distant Early Warning Line before taking part in cold-weather landing exercises in the Aleutians in November 1955 and again in January and February 1956. The landing ship's duties soon took her southward to the warmer climes of the Hawaiian Islands, where she conducted local operations and exercises in March and April. On hand in Santa Barbara, California, from 2 July to 9 July, for the Semana Nautica Celebration, Thomaston returned to the Hawaiian Islands and participated in three landing exercises in the autumn before returning to the west coast to conduct exercises off the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton, California, during the spring of 1957. She subsequently deployed to the Western Pacific (WestPac) in 1959 and participated in exercises off Borneo and Korea in June and August of that year. Alternating between the west coast and WestPac, Thomaston participated in a busy schedule of operations and cruises into the 1960s. During the international tensions brought on by the United States' discovery of Russian missile sites in Cuba, Thomaston sailed via the Panama Canal to the Caribbean and operated with the Atlantic Fleet until tensions abated with the withdrawal of the missiles. She then returned to San Diego on 15 December 1962. She commenced the year 1963 at her home port, NS San Diego, and conducted training exercises into February before serving as primary control ship off "Green" Beach, Del Mar, California, during Operation Steel Gate from 28 February to 8 March 1963. Thomaston departed the west coast on 26 March, bound for the Far East, and arrived via Pearl Harbor at Subic Bay on 20 April. Serving with the Amphibious Force of the 7th Fleet; she participated in special operations in the South China Sea from 22 April