Woman born aboard USS Tarawa in 1979 to visit ship
HONOLULU — A woman born aboard the Navy amphibious assault ship USS Tarawa 31 years ago is returning to visit the vessel in Pearl Harbor next week.
Grace Tarawa Tran’s pregnant mother was one of 442 Vietnamese refugees rescued at sea by the USS Tarawa on May 8, 1979.
Tran was born two days later. Then-Navy Corpsman Richard A. Reed, Jr. helped with the delivery.
Tran currently lives in Philadelphia and hasn’t returned to the USS Tarawa since.
Last month she attended a reunion in Arizona of the unit that was on board the Tarawa at the time. She’s due to visit the ship at Pearl Harbor on Monday.
The USS Tarawa was decommissioned last year and is now at the Naval Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
