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USNS Leroy Grumman (T-AO 195)

USNS LEROY GRUMMAN is the 9^th ship in the HENRY J. KAISER - class and the first ship in the Navy to bear the name of the Naval Aviator and founder of the Grumman Corporation.

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Crew List:

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

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USNS LEROY GRUMMAN History:

USNS LEROY GRUMMAN, the ninth HENRY J. KAISER-class fleet oiler, was built by Avondale Shipyards in New Orleans after award on February 27, 1986. Her keel was laid on July 6, 1987, she was launched on December 3, 1988, delivered on August 2, 1989, and entered service with Military Sealift Command on August 3, 1989. From the start she was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet's Combat Logistics Force, a civilian-crewed ship designed to move marine diesel (F-76) and aviation fuel (JP-5) to U.S. and allied warships under way, with five fueling stations and the capacity to service two ships at once.

In her first years, she quickly entered the rhythm of East Coast workups and Sixth Fleet patrols. On November 1, 1989, during early operations with the then-new carrier USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72), the carrier's records note her first refueling at sea onload - 527,782 gallons of JP-5 - taken from LEROY GRUMMAN as ABRAHAM LINCOLN worked up in the Atlantic. Through 1992, she figured in routine logistics for deploying formations: on January 17, 1992, frigate USS CARR recorded a replenishment alongside. Later that year, on January 1, 1992, USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69) logged a fuel offload to LEROY GRUMMAN while turning for post-deployment maintenance. These serial evolutions were the pattern for the oiler's early Atlantic service: short-notice tasking to carriers during trials and cyclic workups, interspersed with tanker shuttles to bring fuel to the sea lanes ahead of deployments.

By the mid-1990s, as amphibious ready groups and carrier groups flowed through the Mediterranean and the Red Sea on routine presence missions and crisis-response standing tasks, LEROY GRUMMAN repeatedly closed ships in transit. On September 3, 1994, amphibious assault ship USS WASP (LHD 1) recorded an UNREP with LEROY GRUMMAN during a Guantanamo-Atlantic transit. Later that year, on December 18, 1994, frigate USS CARR again topped off from the oiler before proceeding toward the Red Sea and East Africa. These were representative of the oiler's role sustaining long-haul movements and enabling ships to reach operating areas without pausing in port.

During NATO's busy operating tempo around Europe in the late 1990s, LEROY GRUMMAN often appeared alongside cruisers and amphibs as they patrolled or exercised with allies. Command histories from 1999 show the cruiser USS CAPE ST. GEORGE (CG 71) conducting an UNREP with LEROY GRUMMAN while operating with Sixth Fleet, and on October 2, 1999, the KEARSARGE (LHD 3) ARG departed Rota "keeled from" (i.e., fueled by) LEROY GRUMMAN before the Atlantic transit - an administrative phrasing that underscores how duty oilers set the pace for formations leaving theater. The picture that emerges is a steady Atlantic-Mediterranean shuttle pattern: oil alongside before transits, top-offs during patrol boxes, and fuel staging for groups shifting seas.

In the first years after 2001, with carriers and escorts flowing east for the Afghanistan campaign, LEROY GRUMMAN shifted into longer-haul support tied to Operation Enduring Freedom. On January 11, 2003, she completed a replenishment at sea with USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN 75) in the Mediterranean during the carrier's OEF deployment. Six days later, on January 17, 2003, she was photographed passing HARRY S. TRUMAN's port side to set up another UNREP as the battle group maintained high sortie rates. On November 20, 2003, she was photographed off Valletta, Malta, a common logistics node for ships cycling between patrol areas and the central Med. These snapshots illustrate her function in that period: frequent, precisely timed refuelings that kept carrier decks flying and escorts on station without the delay of port calls.

Through 2008-2010, she was a fixture in East Coast training and certification. During Joint Task Force Exercise (JTFEX) 08-4 in July 2008, she passed lines to amphibious transport dock USS SAN ANTONIO (LPD 17) and also fueled cruiser USS VELLA GULF (CG 72) during the IWO JIMA (LHD 7) Expeditionary Strike Group's composite training. In February 2010, she performed the first underway replenishment for the new carrier USS GEORGE H. W. BUSH (CVN 77) during the carrier's flight deck certification period in the Atlantic. These evolutions - COMPTUEX, JTFEX and certification events - are where an oiler's reliability is most visible, because a strike group's graded training timeline hinges on logistics delivered to the minute.

From 2012, she figured prominently in allied exercises. During the United Kingdom's large-scale JOINT WARRIOR 12-1, LEROY GRUMMAN operated with DESRON 26 and USS FORREST SHERMAN (DDG 98). On April 18, 2012, she conducted a RAS with FORREST SHERMAN as HMS ILLUSTRIOUS and HMS BULWARK led the British side. That autumn, she again supported JOINT WARRIOR 12-2 as U.S. and NATO units massed off Scotland.

Her operational loop then tightened around the Mediterranean as U.S. Sixth Fleet integrated four Rota-based destroyers on forward patrol. On October 31, 2014, USS ROSS (DDG 71) conducted a RAS with LEROY GRUMMAN. On November 15, 2014, frigate USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG 58) approached her for fueling and in July 2014, she was photographed acting as logistics hub for destroyer USS NITZE (DDG 94) during Sixth Fleet operations. The pattern continued into 2015 with a sequence of destroyer refuelings during ballistic-missile-defense and maritime security patrols: with USS PORTER (DDG 78) on September 29 and October 4, with USS DONALD COOK (DDG 75) on October 12, with USS BAINBRIDGE (DDG 96) on November 16, and a dual-ship approach by USS CARNEY (DDG 64) and USS ROSS on December 29. Each date-stamped event captures routine but essential continuity: destroyers holding station for weeks because the oiler arrived when and where scheduled.

She continued to straddle training and forward presence. On September 2, 2017, USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN executed an UNREP with LEROY GRUMMAN while the carrier regained full operating proficiency following yard work, and on October 26, 2017, the oiler fueled USS SAN DIEGO (LPD 22) in the Mediterranean during the AMERICA (LHA 6) ARG's deployment. The next winter she returned from overseas to Norfolk on February 4, 2018, completing another Sixth Fleet deployment. Early 2019 found her back in the Atlantic certification pipeline, fueling USS NITZE during COMPTUEX on January 28 and USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN on February 16. By December 20, 2019, she was at sea with the amphibious assault ship USS BATAAN (LHD 5) during a replenishment in the Atlantic.

A major maintenance period at Boston Ship Repair framed her 2020 operating year. The Navy awarded the mid-term availability contract on December 5, 2019, and the ship entered the yard in January 2020. During the COVID-19 outbreak in spring 2020, public reporting noted multiple positive cases among crew and contractors at the yard. After completing the work package, LEROY GRUMMAN departed Naval Station Norfolk on July 24, 2020, for an overseas deployment. By December 29, 2020, she was documented transiting the Strait of Hormuz during her U.S. Fifth Fleet deployment.

The 2020-2021 deployment produced a string of date-certain logistics notes in the northern Indian Ocean. On January 3, 2021, she replenished cruiser USS PHILIPPINE SEA (CG 58) in the Gulf of Oman. On January 19, 2021, destroyer USS WINSTON S. CHURCHILL (DDG 81) sent pallets across to LEROY GRUMMAN during an Arabian Sea RAS and on January 26, 2021, she fueled USS STERETT (DDG 104) in the North Arabian Sea while that ship screened the NIMITZ Carrier Strike Group. She returned home in February 2021 after roughly seven months, a typical length for CLF deployments that shuttle between the Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and North Arabian Sea.

Back on the East Coast, she immediately re-entered the training cycle. From September 30 to October 26, 2021, she - paired with fast combat support ship USNS SUPPLY (T-AOE 6) - served as the logistics arm for CSG-8’s COMPTUEX built around USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN 75), and on December 11, 2021, she delivered stores to amphibious transport dock USS ARLINGTON (LPD 24) during the ARG/MEU Exercise. A scheduled mid-term availability followed at East Coast Repair's Portsmouth, Virginia, yard from January 5 to March 31, 2022.

Immediately thereafter she shifted north for a notable European deployment. On October 17, 2022, she was photographed conducting RAS with USS PAUL IGNATIUS (DDG 117) in the Baltic, and on November 30, 2022, she returned to Norfolk after four-and-a-half months as Sixth Fleet's lone duty oiler in Northern Europe, supporting nine U.S. and allied surface combatants across the North and Baltic seas during a period of heightened allied activity and deterrence patrols.

Beginning in spring 2023, LEROY GRUMMAN shifted from her late-2022 Northern European duty to intensive Atlantic work-ups and then a sustained Sixth Fleet logistics tempo tied to the first full deployment of USS GERALD R. FORD (CVN 78). On April 26, 2023, she conducted a connected replenishment with USS WASP in the Atlantic while she was in Basic Phase inspections.

By mid-May 2023, GRUMMAN was alongside the GERALD R. FORD Carrier Strike Group, executing both connected and vertical replenishments with the carrier during the transit and early operating period. On May 17 and again on May 25, 2023, she fueled GERALD R. FORD during underway evolutions documented by Navy imagery teams. These events marked GRUMMAN's integration into the CSG's logistics plan as the strike group moved from the Western approaches into the U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Sixth Fleet theater.

Through early and mid-June 2023, GRUMMAN sustained the GERALD R. FORD team and its escorts. On June 7 and June 14, she ran back-to-back UNREPs with the destroyer USS RAMAGE (DDG 61), a GERALD R. FORD escort at the time, in the Atlantic and then in the European area of operations as the group pressed east.

Once in the Adriatic, GRUMMAN supported both U.S. and allied units. On June 19, 2023, she simultaneously serviced USS NORMANDY (CG 60) and the Italian frigate ITS ALPINO (F 594) during a dual-ship evolution in the Adriatic Sea. In early July, she again refueled GERALD R. FORD in the Adriatic (July 6), and later that month (July 19) ran additional carrier UNREPs as the deployment rotated through port visits and operating boxes across the central and eastern Mediterranean.

With the GERALD R. FORD deployment winding down in the late summer and autumn, GRUMMAN's near-term future shifted toward maintenance. On November 24, 2023, the Navy awarded Detyens Shipyards (North Charleston, South Carolina) a firm-fixed-price contract for a 108-day Regular Overhaul/Dry-Dock (ROH/DD) on LEROY GRUMMAN, with performance scheduled to begin January 22, 2024 and complete May 8, 2024. The announcement fixed the yard period timeline and location, effectively taking the ship off the line for the first third of 2024.

GRUMMAN executed that yard period at Detyens as planned from January 22 to May 8, 2024, covering docking work, preservation, and machinery/system packages typical of a ROH/DD on a KAISER-class oiler. With dock work complete, the ship re-emerged to resume Atlantic service. Spotters recorded her clearing Charleston on September 4, 2024, and arriving Norfolk on September 6, 2024, followed by photo documentation of the ship at Naval Station Norfolk on October 4, 2024 - useful open-source confirmations that she was back in fleet support rotation on the U.S. East Coast in the second half of the year.

MSC's "2024 In Review" later summarized GRUMMAN's post-yard output for the year: 25 at-sea replenishments executed, more than 12 million gallons of fuel delivered, and 807 pallets of critical stores transferred during the period - evidence that, after reactivation and work-ups, the ship returned quickly to a high-tempo logistics role supporting U.S. and allied units in Atlantic/Sixth Fleet lanes.

A second major maintenance evolution followed on the heels of that surge. On December 18, 2024 the Navy again selected Detyens for LEROY GRUMMAN's FY25 Mid-Term Availability/Dry-Dock, awarding a 135-day package scheduled from March 18, 2025 through July 30, 2025. Trade and contracting notices repeated those start/finish dates and confirmed Detyens as the site, locking in a spring-to-late-summer 2025 yard period in North Charleston.

After completing that planned FY25 availability in late July 2025, GRUMMAN returned to sea and quickly appeared in multinational work. On September 26, 2025, she conducted a replenishment at sea with the destroyer USS THOMAS HUDNER (DDG 116) in support of UNITAS 2025 - the 66th iteration of the long-running Western Hemisphere maritime exercise - demonstrating the oiler's reintegration into fleet operations only weeks after clearing the yard.

In early October 2025, harbor web-cams and shipwatch feeds showed GRUMMAN on the New Jersey ordnance/fuel circuit: inbound Naval Weapons Station Earle on October 1 and outbound again on October 3.

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USNS LEROY GRUMMAN Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by me and show the LEROY GRUMMAN at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on November 9, 2008.

The photos below were taken by me and show the LEROY GRUMMAN passing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel on her way to Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on October 28, 2010. The LEROY GRUMMAN is returning home after participating in exercise Joint Warrior held off Great Britain earlier in October. The last photo shows the LEROY GRUMMAN moored at Naval Fuel Depot Norfolk on October 29. The sign behind the bridge indicates that the oiler had 174 ships alongside during her deployment.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the LEROY GRUMMAN at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on May 8, 2014.

The photos below were taken by Steven Collingwood and show the LEROY GRUMMAN arriving at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on March 6, 2017, after completing several months of service in the Mediterranean as the 6th Fleet's duty oiler. She was relieved in late February by her sistership JOSHUA HUMPHREYS (T-AO 188).

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the LEROY GRUMMAN at the Naval Fuel Depot at Norfolk, Va., on December 26, 2021.

The photos below were taken by Katja Schilb and show the LEROY GRUMMAN passing the island of Fehmarn, Germany, while operating in the Baltic Sea on August 18, 2022.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show USNS LEROY GRUMMAN at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on October 4, 2024.

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