13th T-AKE joins Military Sealift Command

   The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command accepted delivery of its newest dry cargo/ammunition ship, USNS Medgar Evers (T-AKE 13), during a ceremony at the General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego on Tuesday.
   The ship, which was christened Nov. 12, 2011, honors slain civil rights leader Medgar Wiley Evers, who is remembered for his efforts to end segregation at the University of Mississippi in the 1950s and for his opposition to Jim Crow laws in the 1960s.
   “As USNS Medgar Evers joins the MSC fleet of combat logistics ships today, the food, ordnance and fuel it will provide to the Navy’s combatant ships at sea are critical mission enablers for our globally deployed naval forces,” said Tim McCully, Military Sealift Command Pacific’s deputy commander, in a statement.
   The Evers is the 13th of 14 T-AKE ships scheduled for delivery to the Navy by the end of this year. The first 11 of these ships are currently operating as part of the Military Sealift Command’s Combat Logistics Force, delivering fuel, equipment and supplies to Navy warships at sea. The remaining three ships are expected to be assigned to maritime prepositioning squadrons, which strategically place combat cargo at sea for rapid delivery.
   T-AKEs are the newest class of Combat Logistics Force ships being built for the command. They are replacing some of the Military Sealift Command’s aging supply ships, such as Kilauea-class ammunition ships and Mars- and Sirius-class combat stores ships, as they reach the end of their service lives.
   The command operates about 110 non-combatant, civilian-crewed ships that replenish U.S. Navy ships, conduct specialized missions, preposition combat cargo at sea around the world and move military cargo and supplies used by U.S. forces and allies overseas.