Photo By Hendrick Dickson | Military Sealift Command 75th Anniversary graphic honoring the only U.S. Navy ship to...... read more read more
This year, we celebrate 75 years of Maritime Excellence. Since 1949, U.S. Navy's Military Sealift Command has been delivering agile logistics, strategic sealift, as well as specialized missions anywhere in the world, under any conditions, 24/7, 365 days a year. To honor MSC’s significant impact on the maritime environment, we will remember some of the vessels that shaped our fleet over the years with our #MSC75 Blast from the Past series. Today, we look back at the only U.S. Navy ship to be made in the former Soviet Union, USNS LCPL Roy M. Wheat (T-AK 3016).
USNS LCPL Roy M. Wheat was laid down in 1987 as the GTS Valdimir Vaslayayev at the Chernomorski Zavod shipyard in Nikolaiev, Ukraine. It was the final of four cargo vessels of the Captain Smirnov Class. The vessel was operated by the Black Sea Shipping Company throughout the 1980s until the collapse of the Soviet Union. The U.S. Navy acquired the ship on the commercial market in 1997.
After conversion at the Bender Shipbuilding and Repair Company of Mobile, Alabama, the vessel was renamed after the Medal of Honor recipient Lance Cpl. Roy Miller Wheat. On August 11, 1967, Wheat and two other Marines were providing security for a Navy construction crew in Dien Ban District, Quảng Nam Province. Wheat accidentally triggered a bounding mine. This is a type of booby trap which fires a grenade-like mine into the air before it explodes, showering a large area with deadly shrapnel. Wheat realized what had happened and shouted a warning to his fellow Marines before throwing himself on the mine. He smothered it so that his body would absorb the explosion.
USNS LCPL Roy M. Wheat was turned over to Military Sealift Command in October of 2003 in the Prepositioning Program and the Maritime Prepositioning Ship Squadron 1 where it was one of 17 Container & Roll-on/Roll-off Ships in its Surge Sealift fleet. It sailed with MSC until it was stricken from service Dec. 30, 2021.
| Date Taken: | 01.19.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2024 10:52 |
| Story ID: | 464341 |
| Location: | NORFOLK, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 127 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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