The Freedom-variant Littoral Combat Ship USS Indianapolis will return to the Naval Station Mayport Tuesday after a seven-month deployment.

After months away at sea, some crew members from the USS Indianapolis are back home at the Naval Station Mayport — just in time for Christmas.

The Navy says newly analyzed documents show 13 World War II sailors previously believed to have been unaccounted for after a Japanese submarine torpedoed their ship were actually buried at sea.

WASHINGTON – Congress has awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest honor, to surviving crew members of the USS Indianapolis, the ship that delivered key components of the first nuclear bomb and was later sunk by Japan during World War II. So to her crew members who are still standing watch: Your Congress and your nation say thank you.'' He called the crew members ”among the best the United States Navy has to offer.'' None of the crew members would call himself a hero, Toti added, "but they would all say they served in a crew of heroes.'' The crew members epitomized the Navy's ethos of service above self, Braithwaite said.

- The Navy has commissioned its new USS Indianapolis combat vessel at Burns Harbor along Lake Michigan. It the seventh Littoral Combat Ship that will be assigned to Naval Station Mayport. Saturday's ceremony drew dignitaries, Navy officials, four survivors of the ship's namesake sunk during World War II and family members of current crew members. Eric Holcomb, a Navy veteran, noted the Freedom-class littoral ship was made with Indiana steel. He also says the ship carries a "historic legacy" of the second USS Indianapolis that was sunk by a Japanese submarine in July 1945 while returning from delivering key components for the Hiroshima atomic bomb.