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Newest LMSR Delivered

October 2003

The USNS Benavidez was delivered to the U. S. Navy Sept. 10 in New Orleans, signaling new steward department jobs for Seafarers. The Benavidez is the nineteenth large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ship (LMSR) built or converted at U.S. shipyards since the mid-1990s to transport and preposition U.S. combat equipment. The massive ships with their stern ramps, interior ramps and cavernous interiors are ideal for rapid loading and off-loading of tanks, trucks, humvees and other wheeled or tracked vehicles needed by U.S. military personnel. They are part of the U.S. Military Sealift Command’s (MSC) fleet. According to MSC, LMSRs are the Navy’s largest and most modern cargo ships. At more than 900 feet long, each ship is capable of carrying more than 300,000 square feet—the equivalent of nearly six football fields—of containerized cargo, wheeled, and tracked vehicles for the U.S. Department of Defense. The Navy’s 18 other LMSRs —all crewed by SIU members— played key logistical roles in Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom by transporting millions of square feet of combat equipment to and from the Middle East. More than 2,000 SIU members, including mariners from the union’s Government Services Division, sailed during the war. Upon completion of the ship’s post-construction shipyard period in early December, the Benavidez will be placed in a reduced operating status in Corpus Christi, Texas, until it is activated to transport cargo in support of U.S. forces, the agency noted. Like most other LMSRs, the Benavidez is named in honor of a U.S. Army Medal of Honor recipient. The ship’s namesake, Master Sgt. Roy P. Benavidez, USA, of Cuero, Texas, was awarded the nation’s highest honor for his heroic actions on May 2, 1968, in the Republic of Vietnam. During an intense period of combat, then Staff Sgt. Benavidez overcame withering enemy fire and several severe injuries to help evacuate and save the lives of the soldiers pinned down by an overwhelming enemy force. MSC, the ocean transportation provider for the Department of Defense, normally operates more than 120 noncombatant, civilian-crewed ships, which increased to more than 210 ships during the height of Operation Iraqi Freedom in mid-March. Additional transport ships were chartered from private industry or activated from reduced operating status to carry the heavy volume of equipment for war fighters supporting OIF. From January to April, the command’s ships delivered 21 million square feet of cargo, 261 million gallons of fuel and 95,000 tons of ammunition to the Middle East. Much of this cargo belonged to the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry and 101st Airborne divisions, as well as the U.S. Marine Corps’ I and II Marine Expeditionary Forces.