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USNS Mendonca (T-AKR 303)

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USNS MENDONCA was the fourth BOB HOPE - class large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ship (LMSR) and the first ship in the Navy named after Army Sgt. LeRoy A. Mendonca. The USNS MENDONCA was operated by Patriot Contracting Services. On September 26, 2022, USNS MENDONCA was stricken from the Navy list. She lost her "USNS" designation and was renamed MV LEROY A. MENDONCA when she was transferred to the Maritime Administration. She subsequently joined MARAD's Ready Reserve Force but is still available for military sealift operations.

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Crew List:

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

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About the Ship's Name:

USNS MENDONCA is named in honor of Army Sgt. LeRoy A. Mendonca, a native of Honolulu, HI., who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty in Chich-on, Korea, on July 4, 1951.

Citation:

Sgt. LeRoy A. Mendonca, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. After his platoon, in an exhaustive fight, had captured Hill 586, the newly won positions were assaulted during the night by a numerically superior enemy force. When the 1st Platoon positions were outflanked and under great pressure and the platoon was ordered to withdraw to a secondary line of defense, Sgt. Mendonca voluntarily remained in an exposed position and covered the platoon's withdrawal. Although under murderous enemy fire, he fired his weapon and hurled grenades at the onrushing enemy until his supply of ammunition was exhausted. He fought on, clubbing with his rifle and using his bayonet until he was mortally wounded. After the action it was estimated that Sgt. Mendonca had accounted for 37 enemy casualties. His daring actions stalled the crushing assault, protecting the platoon's withdrawal to secondary positions, and enabling the entire unit to repel the enemy attack and retain possession of the vital hilltop position. Sgt. Mendonca's extraordinary gallantry and exemplary valor are in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

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USNS MENDONCA History:

MENDONCA (T-AKR 303) was built as a BOB HOPE-class Large, Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off (LMSR) vehicle cargo ship intended for rapid strategic sealift, with a design centered on moving very large numbers of wheeled and tracked vehicles at speed while remaining in a reduced-readiness posture when not activated. The construction contract was awarded on December 27, 1995, and the keel was laid on November 3, 1997, at the Avondale/ Northrop Grumman shipyard complex in the New Orleans, Louisiana area. After completion of major hull and systems work, the ship was christened on April 10, 1999, launched on May 25, 1999, and completed fitting-out and trials before delivery. On January 30, 2001, MENDONCA was delivered to the U.S. Navy and entered service the same day under the Military Sealift Command as USNS MENDONCA, one of the surge LMSRs maintained for rapid activation and typically kept in Ready Operational Status 4 (ROS-4) as part of the MSC Atlantic surge force, with operation by a contracted civilian-mariners ship-management arrangement rather than a commissioned U.S. Navy crew.

In the early 2000s, as U.S. military planning shifted from the post-Cold War drawdown to large expeditionary operations, USNS MENDONCA's publicly documented activity appears primarily in connection with major activation cargo movements rather than routine day-to-day steaming. During the U.S. build-up for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, USNS MENDONCA departed from Newport, Virginia, on January 13, 2003, to load equipment at Savannah, Georgia, in support of deploying Army forces. Reporting at the time linked the effort with another LMSR, USNS GILLILAND (T-AKR 298), moving complementary loads for the same overall flow of equipment. By June 2003, USNS MENDONCA was documented in the Indian Ocean support network at Diego Garcia, reflecting the broader logistics architecture that sustained operations in Southwest Asia during the opening phases of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM and the continuing regional posture that followed.

By mid-decade, USNS MENDONCA was recorded in a high-visibility transatlantic movement tied to U.S. Army force posture in Europe. On July 24, 2006, U.S. Army Stryker vehicles were offloaded from USNS MENDONCA at Bremerhaven, Germany - an evolution photographed and reported in-theater, with at least some of the vehicles associated with the 2nd Cavalry Regiment. A later account of the same movement stated that the ship had loaded in Tacoma, Washington, then crossed roughly 9,500 miles in about three weeks before discharging more than 100 Stryker Brigade combat vehicles along with additional trucks, trailers, Humvees, containers, and related rolling stock, an example of the fast, high-volume delivery profile that drove the LMSR program.

In the 2010s, published milestones show USNS MENDONCA repeatedly used for joint logistics training and for moving large Army formations between the Pacific and the continental United States. From June 16 to June 20, 2013, USNS MENDONCA participated in a Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore (JLOTS) exercise off Virginia Beach, Virginia, focusing on the ability to move cargo without relying on fully functioning fixed-port infrastructure. During Alaska Shield 2014 - an interagency disaster-response exercise in Alaska that included joint JLOTS-style capabilities - USNS MENDONCA served as a cargo platform for Army watercraft and small tug assets: on March 17, 2014, the U.S. Army small tug USAV MULBERRY (ST-914) was loaded aboard USNS MENDONCA at the Port of Tacoma, Washington, and by March 27, 2014, Army tug assets including USAV SCHOLARIE (ST-905) were being offloaded from USNS MENDONCA in Anchorage, Alaska, with reporting emphasizing the exercise's purpose of operating amid degraded port conditions and challenging local maritime factors.

In 2015, USNS MENDONCA was publicly tied to a major readiness-training move for the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division. In March 2015, USNS MENDONCA - then documented as located in Bremerton, Washington - was activated to move 1,646 pieces of rolling stock from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to Beaumont, Texas, supporting the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division's rotation to the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana. As the ship approached the Texas port complex, she transited the final inland leg up the Neches River channel. An Army account noted that on April 22, 2015, USNS MENDONCA passed under the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge near Port Arthur, Texas, with very tight clearance while Army port and transportation units finalized unloading preparations at the Port of Beaumont. That same account described an operational picture involving multiple U.S. transportation and deployment organizations - reflecting the institutional division of responsibilities among Army surface deployment elements, U.S. Transportation Command, and Military Sealift Command when surge sealift is used for large, time-bounded training or contingency flows.

Later publicly released imagery and reporting show this pattern repeated. On August 1, 2018, USNS MENDONCA was again documented loading at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, with the 25th Infantry Division shipping more than 1,400 pieces of equipment toward Texas in support of another Joint Readiness Training Center rotation at Fort Polk. In the background, this recurring Hawaii-to-Gulf Coast movement reflected the Army's effort to sustain high-volume brigade readiness cycles while validating the sealift and port-handling systems that would be required at scale during a crisis.

As strategic focus increasingly returned to contested logistics and transoceanic reinforcement, USNS MENDONCA also appeared in readiness-stress testing for the surge sealift fleet itself. On September 24, 2019, USNS MENDONCA conducted tactical formation maneuvers in the North Atlantic Ocean as part of U.S. Transportation Command's "turbo activation", a drill structured to test both material readiness and crew proficiency for operating surge sealift ships under more demanding assumptions than routine peacetime point-to-point cargo delivery.

In 2022, USNS MENDONCA was tied to an unusual recovery-and-transport mission connected to U.S. naval aviation operations in the Mediterranean. After an F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to Carrier Air Wing One and embarked in USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN 75) was reported lost overboard in heavy weather in the Mediterranean Sea on July 8, 2022, the aircraft was recovered and prepared for shipment. On August 16, 2022, USNS MENDONCA embarked the recovered F/A-18E at the Augusta Bay Port Facility in Sicily, Italy, for transport back to the United States, with the ship's crew documented as supporting the planning, crane landing, and securing of the aircraft on deck.

Shortly thereafter, a major administrative transition followed: on September 26, 2022, USNS MENDONCA was inactivated, taken out of service, and stricken, and the ship's disposition path was identified as an inter-agency transfer to the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD), reflecting the long-standing U.S. practice of shifting certain sealift assets between Navy operational employment and DOT/MARAD reserve-force management depending on life-cycle status and surge requirements. This transfer caused the loss of the "USNS" designation and the ship was renamed "MV LEROY A. MENDONCA (T-AKR 303)".

Public records then show the vessel continuing to appear in large-scale European movements under the name used in that later posture. On January 17, 2023, the MV LEROY A. MENDONCA was identified as delivering more than 1,200 vehicles and pieces of equipment - including M1 ABRAMS tanks - into the Dutch port of Vlissingen in an evolution framed within Operation ATLANTIC RESOLVE and the broader U.S./NATO posture of reinforcing and sustaining forward presence in Europe after Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea and the far sharper escalation that followed Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. That role expanded in 2024 with another documented heavy movement: on March 11, 2024, vehicles from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division were recorded rolling off the cargo vessel LEROY A. MENDONCA at the Port of Alexandroupolis, Greece, as U.S. and Greek personnel moved approximately 3,000 pieces of equipment for the brigade's rotational deployment in Europe - an example of the growing use of multiple Mediterranean and Aegean-adjacent ports to diversify reception, staging, and onward movement options for NATO reinforcement, and an illustration of how large ro/ro sealift remains central to turning strategic intent into sustained ground combat power ashore.

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USNS MENDONCA Image Gallery:

The photo below was taken by Stefan Karpinski and shows the MENDONCA being escorted through Bab El Mandeb by the German frigate MECKLENBURG-VORPOMMERN (F 218) during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003.

The photos below were taken by me and show the MENDONCA at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., on May 12, 2012.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the MENDONCA at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on September 21, 2018.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the MENDONCA at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on December 26, 2021.

The photos below were taken by me and show the MENDONCA arriving at Bremerhaven, Germany, on July 30, 2022. MENDONCA is in Europe to deliver equipment to forward-deployed US forces. Prior to her arrival in Bremerhaven, MENDONCA visited Antwerp, Belgium, July 24-29.

The photo below was taken by Michael Jenning and shows the MENDONCA at Newport News, Va., on September 6, 2022.

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