Navy Oilers derived their names from the rivers and famous incidents shown in yellow.
OILERS ARE DETAILED BELOW - BORDER STATES ARE LINKED
View ship details through link on ship number
AO = Fleet Oiler Ship. AKE = Dry Cargo - Ammunition Ship.
| Ship
Name Crew Link |
Ship
Number NavSource Link |
Construction Data |
River
Name Data |
| USS Marias | AO-57 | Launched, 21 December 1943 |
The
river was named by Meriwether Lewis after his cousin, Maria Wood. The
river was the scene of the 1870 Marias Massacre. |
| USS Cedar
Creek |
AO-138 | Acquired July 1948 |
This oiler transported Airplanes during WWII. See link at far left. The Battle of Cedar Creek (also called Big Dry Creek) occurred on October 21, 1876, in the Montana Territory between the United States Army and a force of Lakota Sioux Native Americans during the Black Hills War. Read. |
| USS Shoshone | TAO-151 | Launched, 17 January 1957 |
The Shoshone River is 100 miles long river in northern
Wyoming. Its headwaters are in the Absaroka Range in Yellowstone
National Park. It ends when it runs into the Big
Horn River near Lovell, Wyoming. Near Cody, it runs through a
volcanically active region of fumeroles
known as Colter's Hell. This contributed to the river being named on
old maps of Wyoming as the Stinking Water River. There was also
an AKA-65 |
| USS Big
Horn USNS Big Horn |
AO-45 TAO-198 |
Commissioned, 16 April 1942 Launched, 2 February 1991 |
Big Horn referring to Big Horn sheep. The Bighorn River is approximately 461 mi long, in Wyoming and Montana. The upper reaches of the Bighorn, south of the Owl Creek Mountains in Wyoming, are known as the Wind River. The two rivers are sometimes referred to as the Wind/Bighorn. At the border with Montana, the river turns northeast, and flows past the north end of the Bighorns, through the Crow Indian Reservation, where the Yellowtail Dam forms the reservoir Bighorn Lake. The reservoir and the surrounding gorge are part of the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area. |
| USS Laramie USNS Laramie |
See
Central Area |
||
| USS Sacagawea | T-AKE-2 | Launched, 24 June 2006 |
Named
for Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman who acted as guide and interpreter
for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and one of the few United States Navy ships named for women.
Read. The T-AKE type ship is not an oiler but a dry cargo ship that is usually accompanied with an oiler. |
