The maintenance-embattled USS Boxer is heading back to San Diego just 10 days after deploying due to an engineering issue, as first reported by USNI News and confirmed to Military.com by Navy officials.
Sailing as the big deck, or lead ship, of its amphibious ready group, the Boxer had already been delayed by months when it deployed April 1. Its return further comes on the heels of an announcement by the Navy's top leader earlier this week that the service is investigating the ship's prolonged maintenance issues.
“USS Boxer is returning to San Diego to undergo additional maintenance in support of its deployment in the Indo-Pacific region,” Lt. Cmdr. Jesus Uranga, a spokesperson for the Navy's 3rd Fleet in the Pacific, told Military.com in an email.
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The Boxer had departed for its “Indo-Pacific deployment and was conducting integration exercises with the MV-22 Osprey in the 3rd Fleet area of operations,” when it was forced to return, Uranga said.
While further details were not provided regarding the nature of the malfunction, Uranga said the ship would return to its deployment “in the near future.”
Marines and aircraft with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit were onboard the Boxer and have already been offloaded, officials told USNI News, although the ship had not yet made it back to port as of Thursday evening.
On April 8, the Navy's top…
