First overseas watercraft unit activated by Army in decades

The Army recently activated its first composite watercraft company outside the United States in decades, a move that comes as the service seeks to expand its maritime capabilities in the Indo-Pacific theater. The 5th Transportation Company, a composite watercraft company, was activated on Feb. 8 at Yokohama North Dock, Yokohama, Japan. The unit will include 13 ships and 285 Army mariners, Gen. Charles Flynn, commander of U.S. Army Pacific Command, said during a June 2023 change-of-command ceremony. The unit’s equipment lineup, which was previously outlined in a 2021 Army release, features five landing craft utility vessels, four maneuver support vessels, two tugboats and a harbormaster operations detachment for maintenance. The Army announced the launch of a prototype Maneuver Support Vessel (Light) in October 2022, the first new class of Army watercraft in more than two decades. The moves signal an about-face from developments in 2019, which indicated the Army was looking to cut its fleet of vessels despite a critical shortage of Navy transport ships for wartime scenarios. At an Association of the U.S. Army Sustainment forum in 2019, Maj. Gen. Steven Ainsworth, then-commander of the 377th Theater Sustainment Command in the Reserve, said 96% of the service’s watercraft companies were in the Reserve. Todd South has written about crime, courts, government and the military for multiple publications since 2004 and was named a 2014 Pulitzer finalist for a co-written project on witness intimidation. Todd is a Marine veteran of the Iraq War.