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USNS Charlton (T-AKR 314)

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USNS CHARLTON is the fifth WATSON - class large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off ship (LMSR) and the first ship in the Navy named after Army Sgt. Cornelius H. Charlton. USNS CHARLTON was both stricken from the Navy list and transferred from Military Sealift Command to the Maritime Administration on September 30, 2025. The ship subsequently entered MARAD's Ready Reserve Force as MV CORNELIUS H. CHARLTON (T-AKR 314).

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USNS CHARLTON. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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About the Ship's Name:

USNS CHARLTON is named in honor of Army Sgt. Cornelius H. Charlton, (1929-1951), who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for bravery during an attack on a heavily defended position in Korea, June 2, 1951.

Citation:

Sgt. Charlton, a member of Company C, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against the enemy. His platoon was attacking heavily defended hostile positions on commanding ground when the leader was wounded and evacuated. Sgt. Charlton assumed command, rallied the men, and spearheaded the assault against the hill. Personally eliminating 2 hostile positions and killing 6 of the enemy with his rifle fire and grenades, he continued up the slope until the unit suffered heavy casualties and became pinned down. Regrouping the men he led them forward only to be again hurled back by a shower of grenades. Despite a severe chest wound, Sgt. Charlton refused medical attention and led a third daring charge which carried to the crest of the ridge. Observing that the remaining emplacement which had retarded the advance was situated on the reverse slope, he charged it alone, was again hit by a grenade but raked the position with a devastating fire which eliminated it and routed the defenders. The wounds received during his daring exploits resulted in his death but his indomitable courage, superb leadership, and gallant self-sacrifice reflect the highest credit upon himself the infantry, and the military service.

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USNS CHARLTON History:

On October 6, 1998, the Secretary of the Navy announced that a new large, medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off sealift ship would be named USNS CHARLTON (T-AKR 314), honoring U.S. Army Sgt. Cornelius H. Charlton, a posthumous Medal of Honor recipient for actions in Korea. Built at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) yard in San Diego under the Navy's Strategic Sealift Program, USNS CHARLTON was intended from the outset to be a high-capacity vehicle and cargo carrier - part of the U.S. government's modern surge-sealift and prepositioning architecture shaped by post-Cold War expeditionary requirements and, soon after, by the large-scale sustainment demands of the "global war on terrorism".

A Navy announcement dated December 8, 1999, publicized the upcoming christening of USNS CHARLTON at NASSCO in San Diego, scheduled for December 11, 1999. The ship was subsequently completed and, on May 23, 2000, NASSCO delivered USNS CHARLTON to the U.S. Navy for operation under Military Sealift Command. In the delivery announcement, NASSCO described the ship as the fifth strategic sealift new-construction vessel it had delivered under the program, emphasizing accelerated delivery, a consolidated sea-trial approach, and delivery with no outstanding discrepancies. The same announcement summarized the ship's basic strategic purpose: carrying large volumes of U.S. Army rolling stock and sustainment cargo, either as "prepositioned" equipment available forward or as surge capacity that could be activated rapidly to move combat power to a theater. In that context, USNS CHARLTON entered service at a time when U.S. defense planning was increasingly focused on rapid reinforcement and long logistics lines - an orientation that became even more central after September 11, 2001.

Because the publicly released, date-specific record of USNS CHARLTON's routine movements is uneven (particularly for periods when she was not the subject of a public affairs release or documented cargo evolution), the clearest verified milestones in her operational life tend to appear where her activity intersected with major deployments, port loading operations, or photographed command events. By mid-2003, with Operation Iraqi Freedom shifting from the initial invasion phase to an extended stabilization and sustainment effort, USNS CHARLTON was documented supporting cargo movement in the Persian Gulf region: on July 11, 2003, Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 7 reported completing the loading of USNS CHARLTON at Port Shuaiba, Kuwait - an example of the steady sealift pipeline required to sustain U.S. and coalition operations during a period of escalating insurgency risk and expanding base infrastructure requirements.

In early 2004, as the United States executed the large unit rotations that characterized the second year of the Iraq conflict, sealift activity surged again. During Operation Iraqi Freedom 2 - described at the time as one of the largest, fastest combat cargo movements since World War II - five large, medium-speed roll-on/roll-off ships, including USNS CHARLTON, loaded out in Antwerp, Belgium, for the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division ("Big Red One"). From January 25 into early February 2004, USNS BRITTIN (T-AKR 305), USNS RED CLOUD (T-AKR 313), USNS DAHL (T-AKR 312), USNS CHARLTON, and USNS WATKINS (T-AKR 315) took on more than 70,000 tons of Army equipment for onward delivery to Iraq, including M1A1 Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers, heavy trucks, fuel trucks, and containerized supplies - cargo representative of the heavy mechanized footprint the coalition relied upon to secure key terrain and maintain operational mobility in a complex counterinsurgency environment.

The Iraq theater's ongoing equipment demands continued to drive sealift load-outs through multiple U.S. ports and European hubs. In April 2007 - during a period when U.S. force posture in Iraq remained heavily committed and large formations were cycling through deployments - USNS CHARLTON was explicitly documented in a coordinated East Coast loading operation. From April 3 through April 13, 2007, USNS CHARLTON and USNS WATSON (T-AKR 310) (with the chartered AMERICAN TERN) loaded U.S. Army cargo in Savannah, Georgia. The cargo was identified as belonging to the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team and Combat Aviation Brigade from Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield, destined for later deployment to Iraq that year. The same account described the overall lift as approximately 3,500 pieces of equipment, and highlighted the roll-on/roll-off ships' internal ramp system linking seven large cargo decks - an architectural feature central to the class's ability to load complex mixes of vehicles, aviation assets, and sustainment equipment efficiently.

By the mid-2010s, publicly documented snapshots of USNS CHARLTON increasingly reflect her role in the Indo-Pacific logistics posture and in humanitarian or community-adjacent support activities that often accompany forward-based sealift. After Typhoon Soudelor struck the Northern Mariana Islands in August 2015, union reporting described USNS CHARLTON as one of the vessels that mobilized as part of the formal relief effort, illustrating how government sealift ships and their crews can be tasked rapidly in response to disasters affecting strategically important U.S. territories. Separate union reporting in early 2016 described mariners from USNS CHARLTON joining a holiday donation effort connected with Busan, South Korea - evidence of the ship's presence in Northeast Asia in that period and of recurring in-port engagement typical of ships operating in or near regional logistics hubs.

By February 2019, USNS CHARLTON was documented as part of Maritime Prepositioning Ships Squadron 3 in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands, during a visit by senior Military Sealift Command leadership. Photographs from February 10, 2019 captured command personnel transiting by small boat from USNS CHARLTON to USNS SACAGAWEA (T-AKE 2) during an MSC headquarters tour - an operational detail that underscores the clustered nature of prepositioning squadrons, where multiple ships may be moored in proximity to support regional readiness requirements. In the following years, imagery and reporting continued to place USNS CHARLTON in the Western Pacific prepositioning environment, where sealift ships underpin deterrence and contingency plans by keeping equipment, vehicles, and sustainment stocks positioned closer to potential flashpoints than they could be if stored solely in the continental United States.

In 2021, USNS CHARLTON entered a documented maintenance and repair cycle connected to the U.S. ship-repair industrial base. On February 9, 2021, reporting announced that Philly Shipyard had been selected to repair USNS CHARLTON, with completion projected for the third quarter of 2021. The shipyard later reported the project as completed by March 2021. That repair period occurred amid broader U.S. concerns about sealift readiness, ship availability, and the capacity of domestic yards to maintain government-owned logistics vessels on schedules compatible with contingency planning. That same year, on March 4, 2021, a Navy contract award announced that Patriot Contract Services received an operations-and-maintenance contract covering USNS CHARLTON and other LMSR vessels - an indication of the contracted-mariner operating model that has long been central to Military Sealift Command's ability to crew and sustain its government-owned logistics fleet.

Public-facing images from late 2021 placed USNS CHARLTON again in Saipan, described as a ship that prepositions U.S. Army stocks throughout the Indo-Pacific region, with shipboard holiday decorations reflecting the long-duration, forward-based nature of the assignment. In 2022, USNS CHARLTON was documented in Busan, South Korea: on September 1, 2022, a change-of-command ceremony for Military Sealift Command Office Korea took place aboard USNS CHARLTON there, reinforcing her role as a working platform within the logistics-and-support ecosystem that connects U.S. forces to Northeast Asian ports during a period of heightened regional security attention on the Korean Peninsula and the broader strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific.

In 2023 and 2024, additional dated imagery continued to anchor USNS CHARLTON's verified presence in the Mariana Islands area. Photographs and releases placed her in Guam and Saipan during 2023, and in Saipan again on May 25, 2024, when local maritime academy students toured the ship - another indicator of sustained basing or frequent returns to the Northern Mariana Islands consistent with a prepositioning squadron pattern. In parallel, documentation connected USNS CHARLTON to East Coast activity in 2024: a West Coast Sailors publication reported that, a few days before the March 26, 2024 collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, the ship sailed from Baltimore to load critical defense cargo in Charleston, South Carolina.

By 2025, USNS CHARLTON's status and location became the subject of local and national attention. A U.S. Senate office statement dated June 2025 referenced USNS CHARLTON's presence at Baltimore's Pier 8 beginning June 5, 2025, in the context of concerns about in-port impacts and plans to relocate certain ships. In September 2025, Military Sealift Command imagery documented that on September 10, 2025, Rear Adm. Philip E. Sobeck met aboard USNS CHARLTON in Norfolk, Virginia, with discussion topics including mitigation of in-port operational noise and mariner-related issues - an unusually specific glimpse into the day-to-day, shore-facing challenges of keeping a large government-owned roll-on/roll-off ship in layberth or limited activity while still supporting readiness requirements.

A significant administrative transition followed at the end of that month. A Maritime Administration National Defense Reserve Fleet inventory document recorded that USNS CHARLTON was transferred from Military Sealift Command to the Maritime Administration on September 30, 2025 - marking a shift from MSC fleet management to MARAD's reserve-fleet oversight consistent with broader sealift lifecycle management, recapitalization pressures, and decisions about which hulls remain in active logistics service versus reserve status. After that transfer, the ship was widely described in commercial maritime reporting as "ex-USNS CHARLTON", reflecting her changed relationship to MSC's active fleet. At the same time, her name was changed from CHARLTON to CORNELIUS H. CHARLTON.

On December 29, 2025, the ship suffered a notable in-port incident in Baltimore: during high winds and gale warnings, the laid-up roll-on/roll-off cargo ship reportedly broke free of its moorings in South Baltimore harbor at about 3:00 p.m. local time and began drifting, prompting an emergency response that included tug assistance and the Baltimore Fire Department. Tugs subsequently brought the ship under control again. Imagery from Baltimore showed CHARLTON's portside cargo ramp collapsed into the water.

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USNS CHARLTON Image Gallery:

The picture below was taken by Flor Van Otterdyk and shows the CHARLTON departing Antwerp, Belgium, on February 6, 2004. The ship is loaded with cargo for the US forces stationed in Iraq.

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