USNS Watkins (T-AKR-315)

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
Status: 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 recipient.

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

  1. Duncan Campbell, Richard Norton-Taylor (2 June 2008). "Prison ships, torture claims, and missing detainees". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-06-01. mirror

External links