USNS Bob Hope (T-AKR-300)

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Career
USNS Bob Hope in harbor at Souda Bay in Crete, Greece
Name:	USNS Bob Hope
Builder:	Avondale Shipyard, New Orleans
Laid down:	2 May 1995
Launched:	27 March 1997
In service:	18 November 1998
General characteristics
Displacement:	62,069 tons full
Length:	951 ft 5 in (290.0 m)
Beam:	106 ft (32 m)
Draft:	34 ft 10 in (10.6 m) maximum
Propulsion:	4 x Colt Pielstick 10 PC4.2 V diesels; 65,160 hp(m) (47.89 MW)
Speed:	24 knots (44 km/h)
Capacity:	380,000 sq ft (35,000 m²)
Complement:	26 to 45 civilian crew; up to 50 active duty
Aviation facilities:	Helicopter landing area

USNS Bob Hope (T-AKR-300), the lead ship of her class of vehicle cargo ships for Army vehicle prepositioning, was the only naval ship of the United States to be named for the entertainer. Very few ships of the United States Navy have been named for a person who was alive at the time of the christening.

The contract to build her was awarded to Avondale Industries on 2 September 1993 and her keel was laid down on 29 May 1995. She was launched on 27 March 1997, and delivered on 18 November 1998.

A non-combatant roll-on/roll-off (RORO) vessel crewed by civilian mariners under the Navy's Military Sealift Command, Bob Hope and other ships of the class are used to preposition tanks, trucks and other wheeled vehicles and supplies needed to support an Army heavy brigade.

Bob Hope has already seen service delivering supplies and equipment to the Balkans and Iraq.

She is mentioned in the Tom Clancy novel Executive Orders, as one of the RO/RO ships dispatched to the Persian Gulf as part of 'Task Force Comedy'.