USNS John Lewis

USNS John Lewis (T-AO-205) is a United States Navy replenishment oiler and the lead ship of her class. She is part of the Military Sealift Command fleet of support ships.

Ray Mabus, then Secretary of the Navy, announced on 6 January 2016 that the ship would be named in honor of John Lewis. Lewis was a civil rights leader and a United States representative from 1987 to 2020.

Construction


Construction was authorized for the first six ships in the class on 30 June 2016. National Steel and Shipbuilding Company began construction of John Lewis on 20 September 2018, with completion scheduled for November 2020.

The John Lewis class will be equipped with a basic self-defense capability, including crew-served weapons, degaussing, and AN/SLQ-25 Nixie torpedo decoys, and has space, weight, and power reserves for close-in weapon systems (CIWS) such as SeaRAMs.

She was christened on 17 July 2021, the first anniversary of Lewis's death. After completing sea trials with the Navy's Board of Inspection and Survey, John Lewis entered non-commissioned U.S. Navy service under the control of the Military Sealift Command on 27 July 2022.

Rescue of stranded sailor
On 12 December 2022 while traversing from Pearl Harbor to San Diego, John Lewis received a distress call approximately 400 km south of San Diego and 160 km west of the coast of Mexico. A 7.3 m sailboat had suffered damage with torn sails and had been drifting for five days. Once the sailor was located, he was checked by the medical crew, then fed and clothed. The sailor was then transported to San Diego, where he did not require hospitalization.