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SS Gopher State (T-ACS 4)

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Built and delivered as cargo ship EXPORT LEADER for the Maritime Administration, the ship was converted to a crane ship in the mid-1980s by Norshipco in Norfolk, Va., and placed in service as GOPHER STATE on October 12, 1987. Today, the ship is berthed at Newport News, Va., capable of being fully activated within 10 days.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard SS GOPHER STATE. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

• Click here to view the list.

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SS GOPHER STATE History:

From her origins as a commercial container ship to her specialized work as a U.S. Ready Reserve Force crane ship, SS GOPHER STATE traces a steady arc of logistics service that increasingly emphasized austere-port operations. She was laid down as EXPORT LEADER at Bath Iron Works on July 26, 1971, launched on July 8, 1972, and delivered on January 22, 1973, to American Export-Isbrandtsen Lines before transfer to Farrell Lines in 1978. Returned to the Maritime Administration in 1986, she underwent conversion at Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock (Norshipco) to a C5-S-MA73c auxiliary crane configuration and was placed in service as GOPHER STATE on October 12, 1987, under Military Sealift Command operational control in the Ready Reserve Force.

A central episode of her career followed the 1986 U.S.-West German agreement to remove aging U.S. unitary chemical munitions from German storage sites. The effort - Operation Steel Box, known in Germany as "Aktion Lindwurm" - began moving stocks from Clausen to Miesau by convoy and rail on July 26, 1990, and then to the North Sea port of Nordenham for loading. The munitions were placed aboard GOPHER STATE and her sister FLICKERTAIL STATE (T-ACS 5) for an at-sea transit that deliberately avoided the Panama Canal, proceeding instead around Cape Horn. The ships departed Nordenham on September 22, 1990, refueled at sea, and were escorted by the guided-missile cruiser BAINBRIDGE (CGN 25) for portions of the passage. They reached at Johnston Atoll in the Pacific in November for transfer to the Johnston Atoll Chemical Agent Disposal System.

Following conversion, GOPHER STATE was intermittently activated to meet evolving sealift needs. In 1994, she served temporarily as an Army prepositioning ship, a role that leveraged her heavy-lift cranes and deck space to stage equipment for rapid regional response, illustrating the crane-ship niche in bridging gaps where fixed port infrastructure is limited or degraded.

In the Western Pacific, GOPHER STATE supported Exercise COBRA GOLD in Thailand. On May 12, 1998, while berthed at Sattahip, she lowered U.S. Marine Corps tanker trailers to lighter craft as part of joint logistics-over-the-shore (JLOTS) training threaded through that year's air-land-sea events - routine but essential practice for moving fuel and materiel from ship to shore where piers are absent or damaged.

The following year, she took part in CROCODILE '99 along Australia's Queensland coast. On October 9, 1999, at Gladstone, her cranes off-loaded HMMWVs and other light vehicles destined for the Shoalwater Bay Training Area, work that demonstrated coalition logistics interoperability with the Australian Defence Force and underscored the utility of self-sustaining cargo ships in exercise port nodes.

Humanitarian response marked another distinct chapter. After the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake severely damaged Port-au-Prince's harbor, GOPHER STATE was activated on January 15 and dispatched alongside other Maritime Administration assets - including PETERSBURG (OPDS), CAPE MAY (T-AKR 5063), HUAKAI and CORNHUSKER STATE (T-ACS 6) - to augment cargo discharge and port restoration during Operation UNIFIED RESPONSE. As relief flows accelerated, Ready Reserve Force ships provided crane, heavy-lift, and afloat staging capacity that complemented naval and Army port-opening teams working to restore throughput.

Between activations she remained at layberth on the U.S. East Coast and underwent periodic maintenance. Photographs document GOPHER STATE alongside her sisters at Newport News on October 30, 2010, and again on May 6, 2012. A subsequent yard period placed her in Dry Dock No. 3 at Boston on December 20, 2016, for upkeep - a common cadence for Ready Reserve ships whose readiness standards require recurring dock work even when not sailing.

In 2017, she undertook a sequence of North Sea and Eastern Mediterranean movements. She arrived at Nordenham, Germany, on May 16, remained through May 18, and then proceeded via Bremerhaven toward Ashdod, Israel, before returning to Nordenham for a second visit. Imagery also shows her transiting past Bremerhaven on June 14. While the cargoes were not publicly detailed, the routing and port choices dovetailed with allied logistics flows through German military port facilities and Israeli reception nodes.

Her Ready Reserve status continued into the next decade. A 2020 MARAD inventory listed GOPHER STATE at Newport News in RRF condition, and AIS reports have repeatedly placed her at that layberth between activations. On March 29, 2022, photography again captured her passing Bremerhaven bound for Nordenham.

A notable new operational vignette came on the U.S. East Coast during Large Scale Exercise 2025. On July 17, 2025, while anchored at sea, GOPHER STATE used her heavy-lift cranes to transfer and load vertical-launch missile canisters directly into the VLS cells of the destroyer FARRAGUT (DDG 99), conducting a first-of-its-kind rearm at anchor overseen by Navy Cargo Handling Battalion 1 and Naval Expeditionary Logistics Support Group elements. The demonstration reflected a broader effort to refine contested-environment sustainment for surface combatants by exploiting self-sustaining cargo ships to close gaps in pier-side dependence.

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SS GOPHER STATE Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by me and show the GOPHER STATE berthed alongside her two sisterships at Newport News, Va., on October 30, 2010.

The photos below were taken by me and show the GOPHER STATE berthed at Newport News, Va., on May 6, 2012.

The photos below were taken by Daniel Siewert and show the GOPHER STATE at Nordenham, Germany, on May 17, 2017. The ship arrived at Nordenham on May 16 and departed on May 18.

The photos below were taken by me and show the GOPHER STATE passing Bremerhaven, Germany, on her way to Nordenham on June 14, 2017. After a short stay at Nordenham in May (pictured above), the GOPHER STATE proceeded to Ashdod, Israel, and has now returned to Nordenham for a second visit.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the GOPHER STATE at her layberth at Newport News, Va., on October 5, 2017.

The photos below were taken by me and show the GOPHER STATE passing Bremerhaven, Germany, on her way to Nordenham on March 29, 2022.

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