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USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205)

USNS JOHN LEWIS is the lead ship of the JOHN LEWIS - class of fleet oilers, previously known as the TAO(X) - class. These ships are built with double hulls to protect against oil spills and strengthened cargo and ballast tanks. They are equipped with a basic self-defense capability, including crew served weapons, degaussing, and Nixie Torpedo decoys, and have space, weight, and power reservations for Close In Weapon Systems such as SeaRAMs, and an Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Defense System.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USNS JOHN LEWIS. 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 JOHN LEWIS honors Rep. John Lewis a long-serving member of the United States House of Representatives and civil rights activist. Lewis was known for his work as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and as one of the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington. In 1965, Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, known as Bloody Sunday. State troopers and police attacked the marchers, including Lewis.

Lewis served 17 terms as a Congressman as the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation, Chief Deputy Whip, Senior Chief Deputy Whip and on countless committees. Lewis was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his long service in government, by then President Barack Obama in 2011. Lewis died in 2020.

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USNS JOHN LEWIS History:

USNS JOHN LEWIS entered the Navy story on January 6, 2016, when the Secretary of the Navy announced that the lead ship of a new oiler class would carry the name of the civil rights leader and long-serving U.S. Representative John Lewis, setting the tone for a series intended to recapitalize the fleet's at-sea fuel logistics. A detailed design and construction award followed in 2016, and the practical work began at General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego with first-steel cut on September 20, 2018. The keel was authenticated on May 13, 2019, marking the assembly of the ship's structural backbone. After the blocks came together in NASSCO's graving dock, the 746-foot, double-hulled oiler slid into the water for the first time on January 12, 2021, and she was formally christened in San Diego on July 17, 2021. Actor Alfre Woodard, the ship's sponsor, performed the traditional bottle break at a ceremony whose principal speaker underscored the class's mission to keep combatants fueled and moving.

Builder's trials at sea began in early February 2022, shaking down propulsion, navigation, and replenishment systems ahead of formal Navy testing. Acceptance Trials with the Board of Inspection and Survey ran on April 25, 2022, validating the ship against her contract requirements. The Navy accepted delivery on July 27, 2022, and transferred the ship to Military Sealift Command for West Coast service, where CIVMAR crews would operate her in the MSC Pacific portfolio.

Early in service, JOHN LEWIS's team pivoted from new-ship workups to a real-world assist at sea: on December 12-14, 2022, while operating off Southern California, the crew answered a distress call, maneuvered alongside a storm-damaged sailboat in heavy winds, brought the stranded mariner safely aboard via pilot ladder, and later delivered him to San Diego after medical checks and a hot meal. The humanitarian action, widely noted inside the sealift community, would later be recognized publicly.

Through late 2022 and into 2023, the ship worked through a deliberate ship qualification trials schedule typical for a first-of-class unit. On November 4, 2022, she paused pierside at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division, where builder representatives handled minor repairs and where Navy underway replenishment engineers examined the ship's new Electric STREAM (E-STREAM) rigs - electrically driven constant-tension stations that modernize alongside fuel and cargo transfers. In parallel with trials, the crew continued routine MSC tasking along the Southern California range complex. In December 2023, in New York, United Seaman's Service presented an Admiral of the Ocean Sea (AOTOS) mariner's plaque to JOHN LEWIS's CIVMARs for the December 2022 rescue - an institutional nod to exemplary seamanship at the very outset of the ship's career.

As the first-in-class matured, MSC planned and executed the standard post-delivery yard period to fix what trials had found and to incorporate early engineering changes. Under a June 2023 award, JOHN LEWIS arrived at Vigor's Swan Island shipyard in Portland, Oregon, in September 2023 for her Post-Shakedown Availability (PSA). Work packages in a first-of-class PSA are particularly consequential: aligning documentation with as-built reality, finishing deferred construction tasks, and correcting trial discrepancies. After roughly eight months of repairs, preservation, inspections, and systems tune-ups, Vigor completed PSA in late May 2024, clearing the way for follow-on fleet certifications. In parallel, MSC issued a solicitation for a brief mid-term availability with dry-docking planned to start on September 2, 2024, a 45-day package focused on hull, tanks, preservation, lifeboats, pumps, and underwater body items - routine sustainment to keep a new ship on the front foot logistically.

With maintenance behind her, JOHN LEWIS moved into full fleet integration. The new oiler's path to operational status ran through Commander, U.S. Third Fleet. On March 10, 2025, she was formally introduced to Third Fleet as trained and certified, and the capstone event followed that weekend when she performed her first fleet-tasked UNREP off Southern California, refueling the guided-missile destroyer USS MUSTIN (DDG 89). That event closed the loop from new construction to fleet asset and signaled that the class could assume live tasking in the Pacific. Just over two weeks later, on March 27, 2025, JOHN LEWIS departed San Diego with the NIMITZ (CVN 68) Carrier Strike Group for her first deployment, providing fuel and limited dry cargo logistics to the carrier and its escorts across the Indo-Pacific. Through April and May, the ship executed a steady rhythm of UNREPs in the Philippine Sea and South China Sea. On May 5, 2025, she came alongside USS NIMITZ for a full replenishment evolution, and on May 13 she passed hoses across to the forward-deployed USS BENFOLD (DDG 65) on station in the South China Sea. By June 14, the oiler was again abeam NIMITZ for another high-tempo UNREP, part of the strike group's operations in Seventh Fleet waters. The underway schedule also put JOHN LEWIS alongside other escorts: photography from early July shows a replenishment with destroyer USS LENAH SUTCLIFFE HIGBEE (DDG 123).

As the deployment progressed, the strike group transited west into the U.S. Central Command area. On July 21, 2025, JOHN LEWIS conducted replenishment with NIMITZ in the CENTCOM operating area, and on August 8 she fueled USS FITZGERALD (DDG 62) during ongoing maritime security operations there, demonstrating the class's ability to support carrier operations across combatant command boundaries and in summer heat that stresses both fuel systems and deck crews. Throughout, JOHN LEWIS's E-STREAM stations and aviation-capable deck supported a mix of connected and vertical delivery methods, with the new oiler carrying the class's characteristic large fuel capacity for both ship (DFM) and aircraft (JP-5) and limited dry stores to keep escorts and the carrier on task. By the late summer of 2025, the ship had completed the lifecycle arc from naming and construction to trials and maintenance and then through certification and a complex, multi-theater deployment, establishing the operational model her sister ships would follow.

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USNS JOHN LEWIS Image Gallery:

The photos below were taken by Sebastian Thoma and show the JOHN LEWIS under construction at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, Calif., on November 28 and November 29 (aerial photo), 2021.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the JOHN LEWIS under construction at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, Calif., on December 28, 2021.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the JOHN LEWIS under construction at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company, San Diego, Calif., on May 29, 2022.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the JOHN LEWIS at the Defense Fuel Supply Point, Point Loma, Calif., on October 9, 2022.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the JOHN LEWIS at the Defense Fuel Supply Point, Point Loma, Calif., on October 10, 2022.

The photos below were taken by Michael Jenning and show the JOHN LEWIS at Naval Air Station North Island, Calif., on May 28, 2023.

The photos below were taken by me and show USNS JOHN LEWIS at the Navy Fuel Farm, Point Loma, Calif., in late July 2024.

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