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USNS Gilliland (T-AKR 298)

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Built as commercial container ship SELANDIA in Denmark in 1972, the ship was later lengthened by Hyundai and in the early 1990s, the Navy purchased the SELANDIA. The ship subsequently underwent conversion to a large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ship (LMSR) at Newport News and was delivered to the Military Sealift Command in 1997 where the ship entered service as USNS GILLILAND becoming the first ship in the Navy named after US Army Corporal Charles L. Gilliland. On May 17, 2023, USNS GILLILAND was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register and transferred the same day to the U.S. Maritime Administration's Ready Reserve Force, at which point she was renamed MV CHARLES L. GILLILAND and lost the USNS prefix. Under MARAD custody she is still maintained in reduced operating status.

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Crew List:

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

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Accidents aboard USNS GILLILAND:

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About the Ship's Name:

USNS GILLILAND is named in honor of US Army Corporal Charles L. Gilliland of Mountain Home, Ark., who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions near Tongmang-ni, Korea, on April 25, 1951.

Citation:

Cpl. Gilliland, a member of Company I, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and outstanding courage above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. A numerically superior hostile force launched a coordinated assault against his company perimeter, the brunt of which was directed up a defile covered by his automatic rifle. His assistant was killed by enemy fire but Cpl. Gilliland, facing the full force of the assault, poured a steady fire into the foe which stemmed the onslaught. When 2 enemy soldiers escaped his raking fire and infiltrated the sector, he leaped from his foxhole, overtook and killed them both with his pistol. Sustaining a serious head wound in this daring exploit, he refused medical attention and returned to his emplacement to continue his defense of the vital defile. His unit was ordered back to new defensive positions but Cpl. Gilliland volunteered to remain to cover the withdrawal and hold the enemy at bay. His heroic actions and indomitable devotion to duty prevented the enemy from completely overrunning his company positions. Cpl. Gilliland's incredible valor and supreme sacrifice reflect lasting glory upon himself and are in keeping with the honored traditions of the military service.

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USNS GILLILAND History:

MV SELANDIA was built in Copenhagen, Denmark, by Burmeister & Wain as a commercial container ship for the East Asiatic Company. She was launched on April 21, 1972, and delivered on September 18, 1972. In commercial service she operated as a liner container ship (including in the ScanDutch Far East service). In 1984 she was lengthened in Ulsan, South Korea, to increase capacity, extending her working life in long-haul container trades.

In 1994, SELANDIA was sold for U.S. strategic sealift use and subsequently entered a U.S. acquisition/charter and conversion pipeline that turned several large commercial hulls into surge roll-on/roll-off vehicle carriers. While alongside at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia for conversion, SELANDIA broke loose from her pier in a windstorm on June 23, 1996, and drifted into nearby U.S. Navy ships, striking USS DEYO (DD 989) and USS TUCSON (SSN 770) while the submarine and destroyer were moored. Public accounts agree on the collisions but differ on the extent of damage reported. As the conversion program matured, the ship received her U.S. Navy auxiliary designation as USNS GILLILAND (T-AKR 298) on August 23, 1996 under Military Sealift Command (MSC) auspices, even though conversion work was still ongoing. The conversion contract milestone/delivery was recorded on May 23, 1997, and the ship was christened as USNS GILLILAND on May 24, 1997 - selected to coincide with the birthday of her namesake, U.S. Army Corporal Charles L. Gilliland, a Medal of Honor recipient for actions at Tongmang-ni, Korea, on April 25, 1951. From this point forward, GILLILAND served as a large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) surge sealift ship - kept in reduced operating/ready status with a commercial mariner crew so she could be activated rapidly to move heavy U.S. Army and Marine Corps equipment when required.

One of the earliest clearly documented cargo movements after entering service came in connection with the BRIGHT STAR series of U.S.-Egypt exercises. On September 4, 1997, USNS GILLILAND was photographed at the Port of Savannah, Georgia, during Deployment Exercise DEPEX 97-02 while loading Army equipment associated with preparations to move major sets of gear for Operation BRIGHT STAR '98. Contemporary reporting from Georgia's port community specifically noted U.S. Army equipment (including from 3rd Infantry Division) being shipped out on USNS GILLILAND together with USNS ALTAIR (T-AKR 291) and USNS ANTARES (T-AKR 294).

After these late-1990s deployments, GILLILAND settled into the long, largely unseen rhythm typical of surge sealift ships: prolonged layberth periods under reduced operating status, punctuated by maintenance, inspections, periodic readiness drills, and occasional real-world tasking when U.S. force movement requirements spiked. By the early 2000s, as the United States surged forces toward the Middle East, GILLILAND appeared on contemporaneous listings of MSC-controlled sealift shipping operating in or in support of the U.S. Central Command area and the opening phase of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, reflecting her role as part of the pool of large RO/RO hulls available to carry armored vehicles and other outsized cargo into theater when activation orders were issued.

In the 2010s, GILLILAND continued in MSC surge sealift service, repeatedly returning to layberth and maintaining readiness in an era when U.S. Transportation Command increasingly emphasized no-notice activation as a stress test for both ship material condition and the mariner crewing base. By mid-September 2019, this readiness focus culminated in TURBO ACTIVATION 19-PLUS, a large-scale, no-notice sealift readiness exercise. Execution began on September 16, 2019, and concluded on September 29, 2019 when the last activated vessel returned to layberth and resumed reduced operating status. During the at-sea phase, GILLILAND participated in tactical formation and simulated convoy maneuvers intended to approximate sailing in a contested environment. On September 24, 2019 she was documented underway in the Chesapeake Bay/North Atlantic operating areas as part of the exercise, which deliberately mixed MSC surge ships with MARAD Ready Reserve Force ships to test activation timelines, engineering reliability, and the broader support network required to man and move the fleet. Post-exercise reporting and the official after-action documentation treated the event as a practical readiness audit rather than an operational deployment, but it validated that GILLILAND could still transition from layberth posture to sustained underway operations on short notice.

In 2021, GILLILAND's surge capability was again visible in a real cargo movement tied to U.S. Army training requirements. In August 2021, U.S. Army equipment was staged and loaded out at the Port of Charleston onto USNS GILLILAND and USNS MENDONCA (T-AKR 303) for sealift to Texas in support of a major training rotation. A U.S. Army photo series documented preparation and loading activity at Charleston on August 23, 2021, and subsequent imagery recorded the ships' arrival at the Port of Port Arthur, Texas, on September 2, 2021, where roughly 1,500 vehicles were being downloaded for onward movement to the Joint Readiness Training Center pipeline. This mission illustrated the everyday strategic utility of an LMSR: moving very large quantities of heavy rolling stock efficiently when airlift is impractical, while keeping the ship's core posture oriented toward surge readiness.

After more than a quarter-century of MSC surge sealift service, GILLILAND transitioned out of the Navy's active inventory. On May 17, 2023, USNS GILLILAND was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register and transferred the same day to the U.S. Maritime Administration's Ready Reserve Force, at which point she was renamed MV CHARLES L. GILLILAND and lost the USNS prefix. Under MARAD custody she has been maintained in reduced operating status with a commercially provided crew, with the standing plan that - if activated for contingency sealift - she would report to Military Sealift Command and revert from the merchant prefix (MV) back to a USNS designation for operational employment. MARAD's published Ready Reserve Force inventory subsequently listed the renamed ship assigned to Baltimore, Maryland, confirming her post-transfer lay-up location within the Atlantic reserve fleet structure.

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USNS GILLILAND Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the GILLILAND at her layberth at Baltimore, Md., on October 15 and 17 (last photo), 2016.

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