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USNS Kawishiwi (T-AO 146)

USNS KAWISHIWI was the fourth NEOSHO - class fleet oiler. The ship transfered to the Military Sealift Command on October 10, 1979. Decommissioned in 1992, the KAWISHIWI was stricken from the Navy list on November 7, 1994, and was subsequently berthed with the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, Benicia, Calif., awaiting final disposal. Sold for scrapping to International Shipbreaking Ltd., of Brownsville, Tx., in April 2014, the ship was towed to Mare Island, Vallejo, Calif., for cleaning in May 2014. KAWISHIWI left Mare Island under tow for Brownsville on June 27, 2014, and arrived in Texas on August 6, 2014.

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Crew List:

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

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• Click here to see which USNS KAWISHIWI memorabilia are currently for sale on ebay.

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Accidents aboard USS / USNS KAWISHIWI:

Date	Where	Events
1959	Pacific	USS LEXINGTON (CVA 16) and USS KAWISHIWI collide during an underway replenishment. Both ships suffer light damage. The photos below are from LEXINGTON's Far Eastern Cruise Book 1959 and show the extend of damage aboard the carrier.
April 5, 1966		The USS ALAMO (LSD 33) and the USS KAWISHIWI collide during underway replenishment at sea.
February 5, 1970	Pacific	During an underway replenishment with the USS DENVER (LPD 9) and the USS MONTICELLO (LSD 35), the MONTICELLO made contact with the KAWISHIWI while approaching her starboard side. DENVER executed emergency breakaway procedures and no personnel or material casualties resulted on DENVER. The KAWISHIWI and MONTICELLO both received minor damage, but both ships were left capable of carrying out assigned missions and no personnel were injured. Underway replenishment was resumed after a short delay and completed without further incident. The Commanding Officer of the DENVER was directed to conduct an informal investigation of the incident by Commander, Amphibious Squadron Seven.

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USS / USNS KAWISHIWI History:

KAWISHIWI, a NEOSHO-class fleet oiler built by New York Shipbuilding at Camden, New Jersey, was laid down on October 5, 1953, launched on December 11, 1954, and commissioned on July 6, 1955. She cleared Philadelphia on November 18, 1955 and reached Long Beach, California, her first home port, on December 8 for shakedown. On April 25, 1956, she departed Long Beach on her first WestPac deployment to support SEVENTH Fleet, returning on October 10 after months of fueling operations across the Far East. Through 1957, she alternated WestPac refueling periods with local operations from Long Beach. On January 21, 1958, she shifted home port to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii and, a month later, sailed again for the Western Pacific. Her early Cold War tempo centered on high-capacity alongside refueling to keep fast carrier and surface groups mobile.

During the 1958 deployment, KAWISHIWI participated in the multinational SEATO exercise OCEAN LINK. On May 5, 1958, she was photographed refueling the Australian carrier HMAS MELBOURNE; a second image that same day shows her fueling HMAS WARRAMUNGA, illustrating her role in allied interoperability. Later that year and into March 1959 she remained with Service Force, Pacific Fleet, supporting carrier task groups operating off Taiwan as the offshore islands crisis (Quemoy-Matsu) drew U.S. naval presence to the area. She returned to Pearl Harbor on March 23, 1959.

KAWISHIWI's sixth WestPac began on May 3, 1960, when she again replenished ships on the Taiwan Patrol before returning to Hawaii on August 22. In 1960, she is documented refueling the carrier USS TICONDEROGA (CVA 14) and destroyer USS ROGERS (DD 876) during Western Pacific operations, a typical evolution for the oiler as she shuttled black oil and aviation fuels to carriers and escorts.

Amid heightened tensions in Southeast Asia, KAWISHIWI departed Pearl Harbor on February 6, 1961, for SEVENTH Fleet service. In April 1961, she supported SEATO exercises while the U.S. monitored the deteriorating situation in Laos, then returned home on June 26. After a brief upkeep, she sailed again on October 23, 1961, for another Far East tour and, following her return on February 27, 1962, entered overhaul at Pearl Harbor. She redeployed from September 17, 1962 to February 5, 1963, including amphibious exercises off Okinawa in October, and spent the remainder of 1963 in Hawaiian exercises and replenishment duties.

On April 23, 1964, KAWISHIWI was photographed refueling the carrier USS KITTY HAWK (CVA 63) and destroyer USS TURNER JOY (DD 951), an evolution emblematic of the growing combat-support rhythm as U.S. naval aviation activity increased ahead of the long Vietnam commitment. Through 1964 and into 1965, she cycled between mid-Pacific training and WestPac periods. By the first half of 1966, KAWISHIWI was on extended service off Vietnam, fueling carriers and gunline destroyers operating from "Yankee Station" and along the coast. She returned to Pearl Harbor on July 15, 1966 following that sustained period at sea.

During this high-tempo period, incidents occasionally occurred during complex underway replenishments. On April 5, 1966, KAWISHIWI and the dock landing ship USS ALAMO (LSD 33) collided during an UNREP evolution. Contemporary summaries note both ships remained capable of continuing their missions after repairs, reflecting the inherent risks of close-quarters logistics under way.

KAWISHIWI resumed mid-Pacific operations but sailed back to the Western Pacific on March 27, 1967, arriving Subic Bay on April 12 to fuel SEVENTH Fleet units through mid-1967. Across the late 1960s and into the early 1970s, she served continuously on Vietnam support cycles, delivering massive volumes of fuel oil and aviation fuels to carrier task groups and surface action units. Surviving summaries for 1969-1975 attribute to KAWISHIWI deliveries on the order of tens of millions of gallons - representative figures include approximately 37.8 million gallons of fuel oil, 19 million of jet fuel, and over 200,000 of avgas to more than 270 ships - illustrating the scale of logistics sustaining naval air and surface operations off Southeast Asia.

Her sixteenth WestPac, from August 1970 to February 1971 under Captain Donald M. Wyand, is singled out in contemporary records for its volume: about 44 million gallons of fuel delivered to 196 ships, alongside hundreds of thousands of pounds of freight and mail and passenger transfers in Vietnamese waters. These deployments typically cycled through hubs such as Subic Bay and Sasebo and alternated line periods in the Gulf of Tonkin with brief upkeeps alongside tenders or at anchorages.

KAWISHIWI's sea duty intersected with the U.S. space program's Pacific recoveries. On August 7, 1971, during the APOLLO 15 recovery in the Pacific, the primary recovery ship USS OKINAWA (LPH 3) was supported by a logistics screen that included KAWISHIWI, a typical role for fleet oilers during crewed spaceflight recoveries in the era.

Following the Vietnam drawdown, KAWISHIWI continued a global replenishment profile. A 1973-1974 command narrative records a change of command at Pearl Harbor followed by a deployment spanning WestPac, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean - reflecting SEVENTH Fleet's broader posture as attention shifted to Indian Ocean presence missions in the mid-1970s. Through 1975, she maintained WestPac cycles as the final phases of the Vietnam conflict and subsequent evacuations unfolded.

KAWISHIWI's commissioned U.S. Navy service concluded in 1979. After a final WestPac in the first half of the year, she was decommissioned and transferred to Military Sealift Command on October 10, 1979, redesignated USNS KAWISHIWI (T-AO 146) and operated thereafter by a civilian crew with a small Navy military detachment for communications and electronics.

From the start of 1980, KAWISHIWI appears frequently in Southern California operating areas and the mid-Pacific, supporting readiness cruises and pre-deployment workups. A 1981 command history for the amphibious transport dock USS JUNEAU (LPD 10) records an underway replenishment with KAWISHIWI during JUNEAU's local operations prior to entering overhaul in San Diego, a snapshot of her West Coast role at the time.

By 1983, she was again on scene with a deploying carrier group. On October 1, 1983, photographs show KAWISHIWI alongside the carrier USS KITTY HAWK during an UNREP while the guided-missile frigate USS LEWIS B. PULLER (FFG 23) rides station in the background. The date situates the oiler with the KITTY HAWK battle group in the fall phase of that WestPac, as U.S. carriers cycled between the Philippine Sea, the South China Sea, and port calls in Japan and the Philippines.

Mid-decade activity reflected the Pacific's large multilateral exercises and the Navy's reintroduction of the IOWA-class battleships. On July 25, 1986, aerial photographs show KAWISHIWI simultaneously fueling USS MISSOURI (BB 63), newly back in commission that spring, and KITTY HAWK, a dramatic three-ship UNREP that took place during the same summer window as RIMPAC/FleetEx serials that concentrated U.S. and allied units in Hawaiian waters and the Northeast Pacific.

Her late-1980s tempo is clearly visible in carrier command histories. During 1987, operations with USS CARL VINSON (CVN 70), the carrier's log tallied an UNREP from KAWISHIWI delivering roughly one million gallons of JP-5 jet fuel - a single transfer that hints at the scale of sustained flight operations during that deployment cycle. Follow-on years tell a similar story: CARL VINSON's 1988 record notes another major KAWISHIWI UNREP of about 550,000 gallons. The 1989 history lists two large evolutions - approximately 782,000 and 1,099,000 gallons - bookending phases of workups and Pacific operations. These figures, pulled from the carrier's own command reports, offer a quantified measure of KAWISHIWI's contribution to keeping an air wing in the air.

In 1990, the oiler's trackline intersected multiple surface combatants in the Western Pacific. On March 5, 1990, the cruiser USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN (CG 57) recorded an UNREP with KAWISHIWI - its last replenishment of that deployment - before closing out the year with pier-side time after an itinerary that had begun in Southeast Asia, a reminder of how oilers stitched together long transits, exercises, and port visits. Command histories also show KAWISHIWI refueling the frigate USS CROMMELIN (FFG 37) during training events that year, another routine transfer logged amid inspections and readiness evaluations.

The documentary trail grows especially clear again in 1991. On June 1, 1991, photographs capture KAWISHIWI entering the channel at Pearl Harbor for a visit, a mid-deployment pause in Hawaii that was common for MSC oilers cycling between task group commitments. Later that summer, on August 9, the cruiser USS REEVES (CG 24) "refueled from USNS KAWISHIWI" and then continued on toward Pearl Harbor during a homeport shift sequence - a one-line entry that situates the oiler in the Central Pacific logistics web of late Cold-War drawdowns. Amphibious ready groups were similarly on her lines: the 1991 command histories for USS JUNEAU and USS DUBUQUE (LPD 8) both record UNREPs with KAWISHIWI in June and during exercises later that year, as Marine amphibious units rehearsed coalition operations in Northeast and Southeast Asia after DESERT STORM.

Through 1992 she continued routine fuel shuttles in the eastern and central Pacific - support that encompassed carrier qualifications, squadron workups, and the steady movements of cruisers, destroyers, and amphibs between West Coast ports and forward areas. That long run ended late that summer: on September 16, 1992, KAWISHIWI entered the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in California, marking the end of her active MSC service. She remained in inactive status as the Navy struck her from the Naval Vessel Register on November 7, 1994; title later passed to the Maritime Administration on May 1, 1999.

The post-service years brought a proposed second life and, eventually, disposal. On October 27, 2010, a California nonprofit secured board approval for a plan to reef the ship in about 130 feet of water off Capistrano Beach. The idea reflected a broader, then-common practice of converting obsolete vessels into artificial reefs for recreation and habitat. That prospect closed in 2012, when MARAD adopted a policy change (effective May 29, 2012) excluding pre-1985 ships like KAWISHIWI from reefing because of persistent PCB contamination risks highlighted by environmental groups and federal guidance. With reefing off the table, the oiler moved to scrapping.

In early May 2014, KAWISHIWI was sold for dismantlement to International Shipbreaking Ltd. (Brownsville, Texas). She was towed to Mare Island, Vallejo, later that month for the standard Suisun Bay "pre-soak" cleaning and PCB/hazard mitigation before ocean tow. She departed Northern California in early summer, and arrived at Brownsville on August 6, 2014, to be broken up.

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USS / USNS KAWISHIWI Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by me and show the KAWISHIWI laid-up in Suisun Bay, Calif., on March 27, 2010.

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