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USNS Laramie (T-AO 203)

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USNS LARAMIE is the 17^th and last but one HENRY J. KAISER - class underway replenishment oiler.

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Crew List:

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

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USNS LARAMIE History:

USNS LARAMIE took shape at Avondale Shipyards on the Mississippi River as the seventeenth unit of the HENRY J. KAISER-class. Her keel was laid on January 10, 1994, she slid into the water on May 6, 1995, and she entered Military Sealift Command service on May 7, 1996, crewed by civilian mariners with a small embarked Navy detachment. Built with a double bottom from the keel up - one of three ships in the class so configured to meet post-EXXON VALDEZ pollution-prevention standards - she traded a measure of cargo volume for the extra hull separation that regulators required, a design choice that would become part of her identity whenever she went alongside piers and partner ships from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.

Her first operating rhythm formed in the Western Atlantic and Mediterranean. In 1997, she was already on European tracks, refueling AEGIS cruisers and destroyers as they worked the Sixth Fleet circuit. CAPE ST. GEORGE (CG 71) took fuel from LARAMIE on March 25, 1997, during spring operations that paired U.S. units with NATO counterparts in the central Mediterranean, while the cruiser MONTEREY (CG 61) logged an UNREP with LARAMIE during late-spring evolutions the following year. In the surge of amphibious activity that followed the Kosovo conflict's denouement, the big-deck amphibious assault ship KEARSARGE (LHD 3) topped off from LARAMIE during a high-speed transit north of the Peloponnese to Litochoron, Greece in 1999. The oiler's berth-to-berth timing across the Adriatic that season meant that amphibious ready groups could sprint to coastal training areas and back without losing schedule margin to pier fueling.

On May 18, 2000, LARAMIE refueled the destroyer USS BARRY (DDG 52) near Port Said as the destroyer approached the Suez Canal, a snapshot of the routine but essential logistics bridge that linked Sixth Fleet patrols in the Mediterranean with Fifth Fleet commitments beyond the Canal at the end of the pre-9/11 era. In late summer 2001, LARAMIE was photographed off Genoa, Italy, reflecting her recurring Sixth Fleet presence and access to northern Italian ports used by U.S. logistics ships. By May 27, 2002, she is recorded pierside at Norfolk between forward periods, a typical pause for maintenance and loadout before another deployment. On November 15, 2003, during the first post-invasion year of the Iraq War, LARAMIE entered Grand Harbour, Malta, a standard fuel-and-rest call used by Military Sealift Command oilers shuttling between Atlantic staging areas and the Suez transit route to Fifth Fleet.

Training work with East Coast strike groups punctuated 2004-2005. On April 7, 2004, LARAMIE refueled the carrier USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN 75) off the U.S. Atlantic coast during Tailored Ship's Training Availability, one of the workup milestones that certify a carrier strike group for deployment. The following autumn, as the ENTERPRISE (CVN 65) Carrier Strike Group tuned up at sea, LARAMIE's hoses were again in constant use: on November 5, 2005, the destroyer USS McFAUL (DDG 74) broke away after an UNREP during ENTERPRISE's TSTA, and on November 15, 2005, an H-60 Seahawk conducted vertical replenishment transfers to LARAMIE.

Through 2007, she bridged workups and deployment rehearsals for both amphibious and carrier groups. On June 20, 2007, the amphibious transport dock USS PONCE (LPD 15) came alongside in the Atlantic for fuel, followed on July 5, 2007, by a replenishment with USS HARRY S. TRUMAN during the group's Composite Training Unit Exercise as HARRY S. TRUMAN prepared for a Persian Gulf deployment. That autumn, during operations associated with USS ENTERPRISE, LARAMIE supported vertical replenishment evolutions at sea - an alternate logistics mode that moves high-priority pallets by helicopter when weather, sea state, or tasking favors VERTREP over alongside rigs.

In 2008, her track shows both Atlantic and Middle East tasking. In August 2008, LARAMIE conducted an UNREP with the amphibious assault ship USS KEARSARGE in the Atlantic as KEARSARGE headed into a humanitarian assistance and partnership deployment in the Caribbean and Latin America. By early December 2008, LARAMIE was on station in Fifth Fleet waters and the broader Indian Ocean security arc: on December 3 she refueled the French frigate FS COURBET in the Indian Ocean amid intensifying coalition counter-piracy patrols, and on December 13 she conducted an UNREP with the amphibious transport dock USS SAN ANTONIO (LPD 17) in the Persian Gulf. The tempo and geography of those events mirror the late-2008 surge in multinational maritime security operations from the Gulf of Aden into the Arabian Sea.

The 2009 record shows a deployment that straddled Persian Gulf duties, anti-piracy support, and transits through the central Mediterranean. On October 1, 2009, LARAMIE was photographed arriving at Souda Bay, Crete, during a scheduled deployment described as focused on Persian Gulf and anti-piracy operations - precisely the mix of tasking that drew coalition navies toward the Horn of Africa that year while sustaining routine logistics inside the Gulf. Earlier that spring, on May 4, 2009, she topped up the Sixth Fleet flagship USS MOUNT WHITNEY (LCC 20), delivering roughly 150,000 gallons of fuel during a Mediterranean underway replenishment. On October 1, 2009, she entered Souda Bay, Crete, for a port visit during a deployment that combined Persian Gulf logistics with anti-piracy support.

On July 5, 2010, LARAMIE again refueled MOUNT WHITNEY in the Mediterranean during "Austere Challenge 2010", a joint U.S.-European theater exercise that rehearsed reinforcement and command-and-control across the European theater. The NASSAU (LHA 4) Amphibious Ready Group's 2010 Fifth Fleet patrol brought another set of customers: on June 22, 2010 the amphibious transport MESA VERDE (LPD 19) came alongside in the Arabian Sea to receive fuel as the ARG conducted maritime security operations and theater-security cooperation with regional partners. That winter, on January 22, 2010, LARAMIE was photographed working through rough seas while sustaining the TRUMAN Carrier Strike Group.

By 2012, the oiler was a routine element of the shuttle between the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Oman. On April 2, 2012, SAN ANTONIO refueled from LARAMIE during the IWO JIMA (LHD 7) Expeditionary Strike Group's Fifth Fleet deployment, and on July 18, 2012, NEW YORK (LPD 21) took lines in the Arabian Sea while the IWO JIMA Amphibious Ready Group rotated forces across the Central Command littorals. A year later, on June 14, 2013, an MH-60S from KEARSARGE ferried pallets between the big-deck and LARAMIE during a vertical replenishment at sea, one of the many mixed connected- and helicopter-borne resupplies that kept the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit on a tight presence schedule from the Mediterranean to the Gulf. In August 2014, the destroyer ROOSEVELT (DDG 80) fueled from LARAMIE at sea.

The mid-2010s found LARAMIE alternating between heavy underway periods and shipyard resets. In the spring of 2017, the fast combat support ship ARCTIC (T-AOE 8) ran a full set of system-qualification evolutions with LARAMIE on March 23, a rehearsal that immediately preceded deployment east. In May and June 2017, she served as the moving pier for the BATAAN (LHD 5) Amphibious Ready Group in Fifth Fleet: BATAAN fueled on May 13 and May 24 during the group's initial patrol. On June 22, while again alongside BATAAN, her deck teams kept lines fair and span-wires steady as JP-5 and F-76 flowed. On November 28, 2017, in the western Atlantic, she performed a skin-to-skin lightering evolution with the MSC tanker LAWRENCE H. GIANELLA - mooring ship to ship to transfer bulk fuel at sea - an infrequent but essential technique that pushes more product forward without a pier call. She returned to Naval Station Norfolk on August 30, 2017, closing a deployment that had ranged from Atlantic rehearsal to Fifth Fleet logistics. In 2018, she continued to service Atlantic destroyers and cruisers, including an UNREP with JASON DUNHAM (DDG 109) on August 20 as East Coast units cycled through the Mediterranean and Middle East.

The first months of 2019 showed LARAMIE on workups in the western Atlantic before a scheduled yard period. She entered Detyens Shipyards in Charleston for a competitively awarded dry-docking availability that ran from March 30 to May 28, 2019, covering hull, machinery, electrical and preservation work typical of a mid-life reset. Back at sea, she returned to full tempo through the latter part of the year.

In April 2020, LARAMIE took on a different sort of customer and mission set as interagency operations adapted to pandemic constraints. On April 20, 2020, the Coast Guard national-security cutter WAESCHE fueled from LARAMIE in the Eastern Pacific while conducting counter-drug patrols for Joint Interagency Task Force South - an exchange that minimized port calls and kept both crews inside protective operating "bubbles". The following winter brought a high-visibility deployment to the Black Sea: LARAMIE transited the Bosporus and rendezvoused with DONALD COOK (DDG 75) on January 24, 2021, then conducted two underway replenishments with the destroyer while PORTER (DDG 78) entered the theater to operate in company. The pairing demonstrated a new model of sustained U.S. operations north of the Turkish Straits - keeping a replenishment oiler inside the Black Sea to extend destroyer endurance. Shortly thereafter, she shifted to Charleston for a 76-day regular-overhaul and dry-docking availability awarded on January 20, 2021, completing by June 4 and returning to tasking on the Atlantic side. In late April and again in October 2022, she fueled JASON DUNHAM as that destroyer operated between the Mediterranean and North Atlantic, part of the steady churn of East Coast escorts swinging in and out of Europe.

The Eastern Mediterranean crisis that began in October 2023 placed LARAMIE squarely inside the Sixth Fleet logistics web. On October 11, 2023, she came alongside GERALD R. FORD (CVN 78) to pass fuel during the carrier's rapid surge to the Levant. On October 23, she supported the amphibious transport MESA VERDE during 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit operations and on November 24, she ran replenishments for the destroyers CARNEY (DDG 64) and McFAUL amid intense air-defense and maritime-security patrols across the Eastern Mediterranean. Through the winter, she remained in the theater as escorts rotated and the GERALD R. FORD group redeployed, then shifted into a cycle of planned maintenance solicitations and continuing operations.

By the spring and summer of 2025, LARAMIE's bridge log read like a tour of Sixth Fleet. On June 3, 2025, OSCAR AUSTIN (DDG 79) took fuel during an East Mediterranean patrol; on June 23 PAUL IGNATIUS (DDG 117) conducted a full replenishment alongside; and on July 10 she was pierside in Limassol, Cyprus, hosting the Military Sealift Command Europe and Africa commodore for a crew visit during a short logistics pause. A mid-June "Ship in the Spotlight" update tallied her spring outputs since arriving in theater: more than forty replenishments, over 5.5 million gallons of fuel delivered, hundreds of pallets and more than a dozen passenger transfers across ships from Italy, France, Germany and Spain. She returned to Naval Station Norfolk on August 5, 2025 after roughly eight months away, having sailed about 14,000 nautical miles and executed seventy-seven replenishments that moved some seven hundred pallets of cargo in addition to fuel.

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USNS LARAMIE Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the LARAMIE at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on October 6, 2015.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the LARAMIE at Naval Base Norfolk, Va., on October 4, 2017.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the LARAMIE at the Pinto Island Shipyard at Mobile, Ala., on October 1, 2024.

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