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USNS Fisher (T-AKR 301)

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USNS FISHER was the second BOB HOPE - class large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ship (LMSR) and the first ship in the Navy to honor Zachary and Elizabeth Fisher, two Americans who have committed their lives to improving the quality of life for American sailors, marines, airmen and soldiers. USNS FISHER's U.S. Navy service as a Military Sealift Command surge-sealift ship concluded when she was inactivated and stricken on December 7, 2022. She was subsequently transferred to Maritime Administration custody and became part of MARAD's Ready Reserve Force. As part of the transfer, she lost her "USNS" designation and became MV FISHER (T-AKR 301).

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USNS FISHER. 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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About the Ship's Name:

When Secretary of the Navy John Dalton made the announcement that T-AKR 301 would be named USNS FISHER, he said, "There is no way to repay the Fishers for their decades of support, but this gesture-naming a ship in their honor-is the Navy's way of saying thank you very much."

Zachary Fisher, a prominent New York City builder, and his wife, Elizabeth, were instrumental in transforming the historic aircraft carrier USS INTREPID (CV 11) into a museum "so that future generations could appreciate the sacrifices made by a few to guarantee the liberties and freedoms of many..." The INTREPID Sea Air Space Museum opened in August 1982.

Mr. Fisher and his wife, Elizabeth, are dedicated to enhancing the public perception of the U.S. Military. In 1983, the Fishers founded the Zachary and Elizabeth M. Fisher Armed Services Foundation. Fisher Houses, which in 1996 totaled 24, exist to provide free housing for military families in times of crisis. The Foundation has provided substantial direct payments to the surviving families of service people, including the forty-seven killed sailors of the IOWA (BB 61) gun turret explosion. The Foundation also provides college scholarships for dependents of military personnel.

President Bush, who dedicated the first Fisher Comfort House in Bethesda, Maryland, on June 24, 1991, said "Elizabeth and Zachary Fisher are Brilliant Points of Light. This kind of dedication and ingenuity has made ours the strongest, and the most caring nation in the world."

When presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal in April 1995, President Clinton said of Zachary Fisher, "You are legendary sir ... for your generosity to families of those who gave their lives to defend democracy and maintain this country's security. Your compassion and dedication are shining examples of patriotism for every American."

Mr. Fisher has received the Department of Transportation's Meritorious Public Service Award, in recognition of his efforts to preserve and promote the history of the Coast Guard. In 1988, President Reagan awarded Mr. Fisher the prestigious Volunteer Action Award for his work with the INTREPID Sea-Air-Space Museum, the Veterans Bedside Network, the Marine Scholarship Foundation, and Honor America.

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USNS FISHER History:

USNS FISHER was built as a BOB HOPE-class large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off (LMSR) ship intended to give the United States a fast "surge sealift" option for moving heavy Army and Marine Corps equipment by sea during crises, contingencies, and major exercises. The construction contract for the ship was awarded on September 27, 1994, and the ship was built by Avondale at Bridge City, Louisiana. Her keel was laid on April 15, 1996, and she was launched on October 21, 1997. After outfitting and trials, the ship was delivered to the U.S. Navy on August 4, 1999, and entered service the same day as USNS FISHER (T-AKR 301) under Military Sealift Command (MSC), the Navy organization that operates non-combatant logistics ships primarily with civilian mariners, augmented as needed by small Navy detachments and specialized personnel. In keeping with the LMSR mission, FISHER's operational life was centered on readiness for rapid activation, long-distance vehicle and cargo lift, and periodic large-scale movements in support of U.S. combatant commands and joint logistics requirements, rather than routine "presence" deployments in the way a commissioned combatant might operate.

A publicly documented snapshot of FISHER's role in Pacific logistics and allied training appears in spring 2017, when she was employed as a major sealift platform supporting U.S. Army equipment movements and joint/combined access-and-distribution drills. On April 15, 2017, FISHER was in Pohang, Republic of Korea, during OPERATION PACIFIC REACH EXERCISE 2017 (OPRex17), a bilateral training event designed to validate the operational reach concept through a mix of distribution nodes and transportation modes - including an Area Distribution Center, an Air Terminal Supply Point, Combined Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (CJLOTS), and the integration of rail, inland waterways, and coastal lift. Two weeks later, on April 30, 2017, FISHER arrived at Subic Bay, Zambales, Philippines, and began unloading cargo in support of exercise BALIKATAN 2017. That MSC-supported movement was tied to PACIFIC PATHWAYS 17-1, a U.S. Indo-Pacific initiative that linked multiple U.S. Army security cooperation exercises into a single voyage plan for one MSC chartered sealift platform. During that evolution, FISHER had departed Tacoma, Washington, earlier in 2017 carrying equipment from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, supported COBRA GOLD 2017 in Thailand, supported COMBINED DISTRIBUTION EXERCISE 2017 in the Republic of Korea, and then delivered onward for BALIKATAN (which ran May 8 to May 19, 2017), illustrating how a single LMSR sortie could connect several allied events into one sustained logistics sequence across multiple countries.

FISHER's surge-sealift readiness role was also reflected in U.S. Transportation Command-led activation drills aimed at proving that ships could be crewed, inspected, and sailed with minimal notice. On the West Coast, FISHER supported the national "turbo activation" event described in a Navy release dated October 7, 2019, which reported a broad surge-sealift exercise culminating in ships pulling into homeports on September 25, 2019, after short-notice underway periods and readiness inspections intended to test rapid-response sealift for overseas delivery of equipment during war or humanitarian crisis scenarios.

USNS FISHER left on September 1, 2020, from the Schofield Barracks / Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, area to begin a sealift deployment readiness exercise, consistent with the continuing emphasis on proving activation timelines and end-to-end movement performance. Later that year, on December 12, 2020, FISHER arrived at the Port of Vancouver in Washington State to serve as a temporary homeport for approximately nine months, a move that reflected practical basing and maintenance considerations for a large sealift ship operating in and around the Pacific Northwest logistics network.

FISHER's U.S. Navy service as an MSC surge-sealift ship concluded when she was inactivated and stricken on December 7, 2022. Within the Ready Reserve Force accounting that followed, the MARAD National Defense Reserve Fleet Inventory for the month ending December 31, 2022 listed FISHER in the Ready Reserve Force as a Pacific-assigned roll-on/roll-off vessel, with the assigned location given as the Port of Portland, Pier 2, Vancouver, Washington. As part of the transfer, she lost her "USNS" designation and became MV FISHER (T-AKR 301). By April 20, 2023, the Navy's historical evaluation documentation characterized the ship as disposed of through an inter-agency transfer to MARAD, with the vessel location given as the Willamette River, Portland, Oregon - capturing the administrative transition from active Navy/MSC service into the MARAD-managed reserve/holding framework.

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USNS FISHER Image Gallery:

The photo below was taken by Thomas Heinrich and shows the FISHER at Naval Base San Diego, Calif., on March 21, 2009.

The photos below were taken by me and show the FISHER at her layberth in Baltimore, Md., on October 31, 2010.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the FISHER at Bremerton, Wash., on October 13, 2017.

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