The Navy over the weekend christened the John Lewis-class oiler USNS Lucy Stone (T-AO 209), the fifth ship in the new fleet oiler program for the U.S. Navy.
She is an impressive replenishment ship of the size and scope that only the USN coughs up.
As noted by NASSCO:
Designed to transfer fuel to U.S. Navy carrier strike group ships operating at sea, the 742-feet vessels have a full load displacement of 49,850 tons, with the capacity to carry 157,000 barrels of oil, a significant dry cargo capacity, aviation capability, and can sail at a speed of up to 20 knots
Pulling out the Naming convention soapbox
One bone I have to pick when it comes to Navy naming conventions is that she is named for a 19th-century suffragist who had no military connection or service.
It follows the refrain for the class with the previous four ships– USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205), the USNS Harvey Milk (T-AO 206), USNS Earl Warren (T-AO 207) and USNS Robert F. Kennedy (T-AO 208)-– all being named for civil rights pioneers. Granted, at least Milk was a Navy vet (submarine force during the Korean War) as was Kennedy (USNR 1944-46, V-12 program) while Warren was a platoon commander in the Army’s segregated 91st Division during the Great War, but John Lewis got out of the peacetime (1961) draft claiming conscientious objector status!
The sixth and seventh ships in the program, the future USNS Sojourner Truth (T-AO 210) and Thurgood Marshall (T-AO 211) are currently under construction. While both are American icons when it comes to Civil Rights, like Lewis, neither had a wink of military service or by any stretch of the imagination even be considered military adjacent. Sure, Truth helped recruit Black men to fight for the Union during the Civil War, including her grandson, James Caldwell, who enlisted in the famed (“Glory”) 54th Massachusetts Regiment, but I would argue Caldwell would be a more appropriate name for a Navy ship than his grandmother.
If they wanted a powerful Navy woman, why not name the oiler after Captain Mildred H. McAfee, the wartime leader of the WAVES? Or 20-year-old Bernice Smith Tongate, who walked into a California Navy recruiting office in 1917, and proclaimed “Gee, I wish I were a man, I’d join the Navy!”
Tongate, one of 12,000 Yeomen (F) to serve during the Great War, was the Navy’s “first poster girl.”
The previous naming convention from the 1910s through the 1980s was for rivers (Kanawha-class, Patoka-class, Cimarron-class, Chicopee-class, Kennebec-class, Suamico-class and Neosho-class) which gives dozens of historic names that saw heavy WWII service to choose from and still have geographic tie-ins with regions of the country to cite Admiral Rickover’s 1970s “Fish Don’t Vote” mantra in getting away from naming submarines after maritime creatures and instead using cities and states.
Even the 18 Henry J. Kaiser class oilers built in the 1990s, which are being replaced by the John Lewis class were named via a mix of recycled AO-carried river names and those of wartime industrialists who helped make the Navy that beat Germany and Japan. Of note, Kaiser’s yards built hundreds of Liberty ships and dozens of escort carriers in record time.
The Navy has granted NASSCO a block buy for eight more, of which the SECNAV will no doubt continue with his progressive name choices:
National Steel and Shipbuilding Co., San Diego, California, is awarded a $6,754,785,160 fixed-price incentive (firm-target), block buy contract for detail design and construction of eight T-AO 205 John Lewis class fleet replenishment oiler ships (T-AO 214 through 221). Work will be performed in San Diego, California (56%); Iron Mountain, Michigan (8%); Mexicali, Mexico (6%); Crozet, Virginia (4%); Beloit, Wisconsin (4%); Metairie, Louisiana (3%); Santa Fe Springs, California (2%); Chesapeake, Virginia (2%); Chula Vista, California (1%); Walpole, Massachusetts (1%); Houston, Texas (1%); Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1%); National City, California (1%); and other locations (less than 1% each, and collectively totaling 10%), and is expected to be completed by January 2035. Fiscal 2024 shipbuilding and conversion (Navy) funds in the amount of $780,000,000 will be obligated at time of award and will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured in accordance with 10 U.S. Code 3204(a)(3) (industrial mobilization; engineering, developmental, or research capability; or expert services). Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington, D.C., is the contracting activity (N00024-24-C-2301).
While I love to see the new hulls, I do wish they would have more relevant names for future warfighters. Sure, leaders such as Stone and Truth deserve to be remembered– but put their face on a coin or stamp and name on a building, not on a naval ship.
Especially on a ship that will be manned by overworked and underappreciated civilian mariners (CIVMARs) of which the MSC is in short supply. These people aren’t looking for inspirational civil rights leaders’ names on the stern of their next contract vessel, they are looking for better pay, benefits, and working conditions– which is something the SECNAV should devote the same amount of time to that he does picking out progressive ship names.