U.S. Navy visits former base in Vietnam's strategic Cam Ranh Bay
HO CHI MINH CITY -- The U.S. Navy's oldest operational ship is visiting Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay, a strategic waterway in the South China Sea that has stirred the interest of military powers from Russia to China.
The flagship USS Blue Ridge, in addition to the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Waesche, is paying a port call from Monday to Friday at what was a naval and air base for the U.S. in the Vietnam War and then for the Soviet Union and Russia until 2002, when Hanoi stopped allowing foreign militaries.