USNS Watkins (T-AKR-315)

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Career (US)
Ordered: 23 May 1997
Builder: National Steel and Shipbuilding Company
Laid down: 24 August 1999
Launched: 28 July 2000
In service: 2 March 2001
Fate: in service
General characteristics
Class and type: Watson-class vehicle cargo ship
Displacement: 29,000 tons
Length: 950 ft
Beam: 106 ft
Draft: 34 ft
Propulsion: Gas turbine

USNS Watkins (T-AKR-315) is one of Military Sealift Command's nineteen Large, Medium-Speed Roll-on/Roll-off Ships and is part of the 33 ships in the Prepositioning Program. She is a Watson-class vehicle cargo ship.

She was named for Master Sergeant Travis E. Watkins, a Medal of Honor Receipient.

Laid down on 24 August 1999 and launched on 28 July 2000, Watkins was put into service in the Pacific Ocean on 2 March 2001.

According to The Guardian the human rights group Reprieve identified the Watkins and sixteen other USN vessels as having held "ghost prisoners" in clandestine extrajudicial detention.[1]

References

External Links

This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain.