Page 49: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 2024)

MILITARY SEALIFT COMMAND CELEBRATES 75 also participated regularly in support of Southern Partnership requires ice-strengthened cargo ships capable of unloading and Paci? c Partnership theater security cooperation exercises. cargo and taking on retrograde materials.

The Navy’s expeditionary sea bases (ESBs) provide a sea- MSC-chartered MV Ocean Giant performed the Operation going platform from which logistics, special operations and Pacer Goose mission to Pituf? k Space Base — which is the new mine countermeasures can be conducted, and operate with a name for Thule Air Force Base — in Greenland last August. hybrid Navy-CIVMAR crew. MSC chartered the cargo ship MV Ocean Gladiator and tanker

The T-AGS oceanographic survey ships and T-AGOS ocean MT Acadia Trader to conduct the resupply to the National Sci- surveillance ships provide critical environmental data to help ence Foundation’s base at McMurdo Sound on Antarctica. Al- war? ghters maintain the competitive edge. though these missions are conducted in the summer, icebreakers

Some ships work in pairs. The 349-foot, 6,500-ton USNS are usually required to open a channel for the resupply ships.

Vice Adm. K. R. Wheeler (T-AG 5001) transfers fuel from The most distinctive silhouette of any MSC ship has to be tankers to forces ashore to support boat, vehicle and aviation the Sea-Based X-Band Radar, which is a 32,600-ton semi- operations. It works in tandem with the 155-foot, 367-ton M/V submersible, self-propelled platform with a large white ra-

Fast Tempo, which helps position the fuel transfer hoses. And dome on top that provides ballistic missile-tracking informa- at the Navy’s bases at Bangor and Kings Bay respectively, a tion for the Missile Defense Agency. pair of T-AGSE ships support the movement of submarines in Today, as it has for 75 years, MSC ships across the world’s coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard. oceans are supporting the ? eet and DoD with high-skilled and

MSC ships have often had to venture into distant and dan- dedicated mariners sailing aboard unique and specialized ves- gerous waters. During the early 1950s, a number of WW II- sels with blue and gold stripes on the stacks.

era MSTS cargo ships carried the material need to build the

Thule air base in Greenland to support long-range bombers.

Likewise, a number of MSTS ships supported construction of the Distant Early Warning radar stations across the northern approaches to Alaska and Canada.

One of the Navy’s dock landing ships was built with a strengthened hull and operated by MSC to support Arctic operations. The 10,000-ton, 456-foot USNS Point Barrow (T-AKD 1) was later modi? ed to support NASA’s manned space ? ight program. The ship was later converted to support deep submergence operations and renamed USS Point Loma (AGDS 2) in 1974.

Military Sealift Command has wide-reaching contract- ing authority to obtain sealift services for special missions.

Among the interesting assignments given to those MSC-con-

The Cutter Mustang escorts U.S. Naval Ship Henry J. Kaiser into

Seward, Alaska, a standard procedure for a Military Sealift Vessel tracted ships are the annual resupply missions to the Thule visiting the state. base in Greenland and McMurdo base in Antarctica, which

US Coast Guard Art Program 2008 Collection, Ob ID # 200802, "Escort Duty" Nina Buxton, oil, 24 x 36

First of fourteen 45,000- MSC announces that its Civil Service Mariner ton, 689-foot Lewis and headquarters function (CIVMAR) Eliza

Clark class of dry cargo in Washington, D.C. Pingree becomes and ammunition ships and Norfolk, Va., will be MSC’s ? rst female joins the ? eet. consolidated in Norfolk. chief engineer.

2012 2022 20052007 2014 2024

U.S. Sixth Fleet First Spearhead class MSC’s newest ? eet ? agship USS Mount of expeditionary fast oiler, USNS John

Whitney (LCC 20) transports joins the ? eet. Lewis (T-AO 205) is converted to a hybrid The EPFs are capable of delivered to the Navy.

crew of CIVMARs and 40-plus knots.

active Navy personnel. www.marinelink.com 49

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