USNS Watkins
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Ordered | 23 May 1997 |
| Builder | National Steel and Shipbuilding Company |
| Laid down | 24 August 1999 |
| Launched | 28 July 2000 |
| In service | 2 March 2001 |
| Identification |
|
| 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
[edit]- ^ Duncan Campbell, Richard Norton-Taylor (2 June 2008). "Prison ships, torture claims, and missing detainees". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-06-01. mirror
This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register, which, as a U.S. government publication, is in the public domain. The entry can be found here.
External links
[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to IMO 9232230.
- Photo gallery at navsource.org