Then-USNS Hershel "Woody" Williams in September 2019 | |
History | |
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Namesake | Hershel W. Williams |
Builder | GD/ NASSCO – San Diego, California |
Laid down | 2 August 2016 [1] |
Launched | 19 August 2017 [2] |
Christened | 21 October 2017 [3] |
Acquired | 22 February 2018 [4] |
Commissioned | 7 March 2020 [5] |
Identification |
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Motto | Peace We Seek, Peace We Keep |
Status | in active service [6] |
Badge | ![]() |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Expeditionary Mobile Base |
Length | 784 feet (239 m) [7] |
Complement | 19 officers, 231 enlisted [8] |
Sensors and processing systems | SEA GIRAFFE AMB [9] |
Aircraft carried | MH-53 and MH-60 helicopters [7] |
USS Hershel "Woody" Williams (ESB-4) (formerly USNS Hershel "Woody" Williams (T-ESB-4)) is a Lewis B. Puller-class expeditionary mobile base (ESB), currently in service with the United States Navy. The ship is also a sub-variant of the Montford Point-class expeditionary transfer dock (ESD). [10] The ESDs are operated by the Navy's Military Sealift Command with predominantly civilian crews, while the ESBs, owing to the nature of their operations, have been commissioned and commanded directly by the U.S. Navy. The ship was named in honor of Hershel W. "Woody" Williams in an announcement by then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, on 14 January 2016. Williams was a Marine who was awarded the Medal of Honor in the Battle of Iwo Jima, during World War II. [11]
The $498 million contract for the then-unnamed vessel was awarded to the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), a division of General Dynamics, in December 2014. [12] Her keel was laid on 2 August 2016, [1] [7] and she was scheduled to be completed in early 2018. [7] The vessel was christened on 21 October 2017, at NASSCO in San Diego . [3] The ship was delivered to Military Sealift Command on 22 February 2018, [4] and placed into service the same day. [6]
Hershel "Woody" Williams will be the first Navy ship other than the Littoral Combat Ship to deploy the Northrop Grumman MQ-8 Fire Scout rotary-wing UCAV. [13]
The ship was commissioned by the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia on 7 March 2020. [14] [5] Williams was present for the ship commissioning ceremony. [15]
Since 2020 it is deployed to Souda Bay Naval Base in the Mediterranean Sea. [16] [17]
Hershel “Woody” Williams, while with the U.S. Sixth Fleet, visited Cape Town, South Africa in February 2021, [18] and again in August 2022. [19]
On 28 February 2023, Hershel “Woody” Williams arrived in Mersin, Turkey to deliver relief supplies for those affected by the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquake. [20]
On 10 May 2024, Hershel “Woody” Williams suffered a “soft” grounding after leaving port in Gabon, Africa. [21]
On 3 June 2024, Hershel "Woody" Williams made its first visit to the port of Malaga to complete a rest call. [22]
USS Ponce, was an Austin-class amphibious transport dock, formerly in service with the United States Navy. She has been the only ship of the Navy named for Ponce in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which in turn was named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León, the first governor of Puerto Rico and the European discoverer of Florida. Her keel was laid down on 31 October 1966 by the Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company of Seattle, Washington. She was launched on 20 May 1970 sponsored by Florence W. Hyland, the wife of Admiral John J. Hyland, and commissioned on 10 July 1971. She spent most of her career based on the East Coast and operating in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, serving in Operation Desert Shield and supporting US operations in the 2011 Libyan Civil War.
The Military Sealift Command (MSC) is an organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the United States Navy. Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and ocean transportation for all US military services as well as for other government agencies. It first came into existence on 9 July 1949 when the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) became solely responsible for the Department of Defense's ocean transport needs. The MSTS was renamed the Military Sealift Command in 1970.
USS Mount Whitney is one of two Blue Ridge-class amphibious command ships of the United States Navy and is the flagship and command ship of the United States Sixth Fleet. USS Mount Whitney also serves as the Afloat Command Platform (ACP) of Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO). The ship had previously served for years as the COMSTRIKFLTLANT(NATO Designation) / US Second Fleet's command ship. She is one of only a few commissioned ships to be assigned to Military Sealift Command.
National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, commonly referred to as NASSCO, is an American shipbuilding company with four shipyards located in San Diego, Norfolk, Bremerton, and Mayport. It is a division of General Dynamics. NASSCO owns a subsidiary manufacturing facility with TIMSA in Mexicali, Mexico. The San Diego shipyard specializes in constructing commercial cargo ships and auxiliary vessels for the US Navy and Military Sealift Command; it is the only new-construction shipyard on the West Coast of the United States. NASSCO performs ship repairs and conversions for the United States Navy in all four shipyard locations: San Diego, Norfolk, Bremerton, and Mayport.
USNS Matthew Perry (T-AKE-9) is a Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship of the United States Navy, named in honor of Commodore Matthew C. Perry (1794–1858), who led the effort to open Japan to trade with the West.
USNS Washington Chambers (T-AKE-11) is a Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship of the United States Navy, named in honor of Captain Washington Chambers (1856–1934), a pioneer in US naval aviation.
USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE-13) is a Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ship of the United States Navy. As part of the Navy's Combat Logistics Force, her mission is to deliver ammunition, provisions, dry stores, refrigerated food, spare parts, potable water, and diesel and jet fuel to U.S. Navy and allied ships while at sea. The ship is named for civil rights movement activist Medgar Evers, a World War II veteran who was assassinated in 1963. The Navy announced the naming on 9 October 2009.
An Expeditionary Transfer Dock (ESD), formerly the Mobile Landing Platform (MLP), is designed to be a semi-submersible, flexible, modular platform providing the US Navy with the capability to perform large-scale logistics movements such as the transfer of vehicles and equipment from sea to shore. These ships significantly reduce the dependency on foreign ports and provide support in the absence of port availability. The class also houses a sub-class variant called the Expeditionary Mobile Base (ESB), formerly the Afloat Forward Staging Base (AFSB).
USNS Montford Point (T-ESD-1),, the lead ship of her class of Expeditionary Transfer Docks (ESD), is a ship named in honor of African American Marine Corps recruits who trained at Montford Point Camp, North Carolina, from 1942 to 1949. After $115 million was allocated for long-lead time material and advanced design efforts, in late 2010 General Dynamics's National Steel and Shipbuilding Company was awarded the contract, worth approximately $500 million, to build the first of three planned vessels.
USNS John Glenn (T-ESD-2), is a United States Navy Expeditionary Transfer Dock ship named in honor of John Glenn, a Naval Aviator, retired United States Marine Corps colonel, veteran of World War II and the Korean War, astronaut, and United States senator.
USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB-3), is the first purpose-built expeditionary mobile base vessel for the United States Navy, and the second ship to be named in honor of Chesty Puller. The lead ship in her class of expeditionary mobile bases, she is also a sub-variant of the Montford Point-class expeditionary transfer docks. Lewis B. Puller replaced USS Ponce with the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf in late 2017.
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The John Lewis class is a class of fleet replenishment oilers which began construction in September 2018. The class will comprise twenty oilers which will be operated by Military Sealift Command to provide underway replenishment of fuel and limited amounts of dry cargo to United States Navy carrier strike groups, amphibious ready groups, and other surface forces, to allow them to operate worldwide.
USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO-206) is the second of the John Lewis-class of underway replenishment oilers, operated by the Military Sealift Command (MSC) to support ships of the United States Navy.
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This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships .