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SS Pollux (T-AKR 290)

Photo by Stefan Karpinski, taken in Middle East waters in 2003. Click to enlarge.

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Named after the the southernmost of two bright stars in the constellation Gemini, the SS POLLUX is the fourth ALGOL - class fast sealift ship and the fourth ship in the Navy to bear the name. Ships in that class are the world's fastest cargo ships. Originally built in the West Germany in 1973 as SS SEA-LAND MARKET for Sea-Land Services, Inc., Port Elizabeth, N.J., the ship was purchased by the Navy in 1981 and converted. The cargo hold was redesigned into a series of decks connected by ramps so that vehicles can now be driven in and out of storage areas for rapid loading and unloading. Four cranes were installed - twin cranes amidships capable of lifting 35 long tons and twin cranes aft capable of lifting 50 long tons. POLLUX, the last ship in her class to finish conversion, was delivered to the Military Sealift Command in 1986.

Since then, the POLLUX was involved in several operations including Desert Shield/Desert Storm (1990/91), Restore Hope (1992) and Operation Enduring Freedom (2001 - ). On October 1, 2007, the POLLUX was transferred to the MARAD. On October 1, 2008, the ship was transferred to the Ready Reserve Force and lost her USNS designation. POLLUX is presently laid up at Beaumont, Tx., waiting to be sold for scrapping.

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Crew List:

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

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SS POLLUX History:

Built for commercial high-speed container service, the ship that would become POLLUX (T-AKR 290) began life at A.G. Weser in Bremen, then in West Germany, as SS SEA-LAND MARKET (yard/hull no. 1384). She was launched on May 1, 1973, and delivered to Sea-Land Service, Inc. on September 1, 1973. In the context of 1970s fuel-price volatility and tightening economics for very fast containerships, ships of this type proved costly to operate in purely commercial trades, and Sea-Land ultimately sold SEA-LAND MARKET to the U.S. Navy. The ownership/name change to POLLUX is recorded on November 16, 1981, marking her entry into government service under Military Sealift Command (MSC) as the non-commissioned USNS POLLUX (T-AK 290), with a civilian mariner crew and a mission centered on strategic sealift rather than routine commercial liner operations.

To convert a former containership optimized for speed into a ship optimized for rapid military throughput, POLLUX entered a major conversion program at Avondale Shipyards in the New Orleans area. The conversion is recorded as beginning on July 28, 1984, transforming internal cargo spaces into a multi-deck roll-on/roll-off arrangement connected by ramps to support fast loading and discharge of wheeled and tracked vehicles - capabilities shaped by late-Cold War planning that emphasized rapid reinforcement of overseas theaters. After completion of that work-up and acceptance process, MSC accepted delivery of the converted fast-sealift ship on March 31, 1986, after which POLLUX was redesignated T-AKR 290 and served as part of the small, high-readiness U.S. surge sealift force intended to move heavy equipment quickly when crises required it.

That strategic purpose became immediately relevant during the Gulf crisis and war that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990. POLLUX is listed among U.S. Navy/MSC units supporting Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM, with her participation recorded across October 1990 through March 1991. While the publicly available unit listings confirm her involvement and the broad timeframe, they do not provide a complete, ship-specific port-by-port itinerary or individual sailing dates for each lift; accordingly, the verified record supports stating her role as a fast, vehicle-capable sealift platform activated to move cargo in support of the U.S.-led coalition effort to defend Saudi Arabia and then eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

In the post-Cold War period, POLLUX continued to appear in documented sealift and logistics contexts that reflected a shift from a single central-front contingency toward expeditionary operations and joint force experimentation. A dated Department of Defense photograph places POLLUX in a Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (JLOTS) scenario on May 1, 1992, offloading a truck and trailer in support of Exercise OCEAN VENTURE '92, illustrating how the U.S. tested the ability to project sustainment ashore even when fixed port infrastructure was limited or unavailable. Later in the decade, POLLUX is also visually documented in Northeast Asia: on October 19, 1998, she is recorded anchored off Pusan, Republic of Korea, consistent with the recurring logistics demands associated with U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance activity and the continuing requirement to sustain heavy forces in the region.

Through the 2000s, POLLUX remained within the surge sealift architecture, and the administrative and maintenance record becomes more prominent than publicly itemized voyage narratives. She is recorded as going to Boston Ship Repair on March 1, 2008, and later that year she is specifically recorded in lay-up: on November 4, 2008, POLLUX entered Reduced Operating Status (ROS-5) lay-up at Philadelphia, reflecting a posture in which she could be brought forward from standby within a defined readiness window rather than remaining continuously crewed and operating. During this era, the broader governance of the fast sealift ships shifted: beginning October 1, 2007, the eight-ship fast sealift group's operation transitioned under Maritime Administration (MARAD) management arrangements, and on October 1, 2008 the ships entered MARAD's Ready Reserve Force (RRF) framework, after which POLLUX was commonly carried as SS POLLUX in reserve-fleet documentation while remaining available for defense-related activation.

From that point, the verified trail is dominated by reserve-fleet status entries and readiness actions rather than announced deployments. POLLUX is documented undergoing a turbo activation from September 21-26, 2010, another turbo activation from December 4-9, 2012, and a further turbo activation from September 6-15, 2016 - short, concentrated readiness events typically used to exercise propulsion and critical systems and to validate that a reserve ship can meet activation timelines when called. A dated photograph places POLLUX at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on June 10, 2012, consistent with her documented Philadelphia lay-up period. By December 31, 2014, her recorded reserve-fleet inactivity location is RRF Beaumont Reserve Fleet East, reflecting her assignment into the Gulf Coast reserve-fleet infrastructure that supports multiple RRF ships. Public reserve-fleet inventories list POLLUX at BRF East Dock, Beaumont, Tx., as an RRF roll-on/roll-off fast sealift ship during early 2024. In MARAD's public inventory reporting for February 29, 2024, POLLUX's status remarks are recorded as being on order for downgrade to non-retention in FY25 Q4, with recycling in FY26 Q2 indicated in the same change context - an administrative signal that, absent new requirements or reversals, the ship was being placed on a planned path out of the active RRF surge force. Subsequent public inventory reporting in 2025 referenced POLLUX having been shifted to BRF anchorage on August 5, 2024, and included a planned August 11, 2025 downgrade-to-non-retention date in the remarks, documenting the stepwise process by which a long-maintained surge sealift asset is repositioned and administratively prepared for final disposition after decades of reserve readiness and periodic activation.

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