The USS Wabash, a replenishment oiler, had its keel laid down on January 21, 1970, at the General Dynamics shipyard in Quincy, Mass., and was commissioned on Nov. 20, 1971, at the Boston Naval Shipyard under Captain Robert P. Chrisler. Originally based in Long Beach, Calif., it made its first deployment in support of U.S. combat ships in Vietnam, beginning operations in the Tonkin Gulf on December 7, 1972. During the final phase of American combat operations in Vietnam, it conducted 46 underway replenishments a day before leaving in mid-1973. The ship was decommissioned in 1994, stricken from the Naval Vessel Register in 1997, and then laid up in the National Defense Reserve fleet in Suisun Bay, Calif. It was named after the Wabash River, which flows a short distance east and south of this location.