[Epoch Times, July 31, 2021](Epoch Times reporter Zhang Ni compiled a report) The U.S. Navy’s unusually large ship, APL 67, recently left from Mississippi in the United States and headed for Japan. This ship has no engines, no monitors, and no weapons.
This is a spare barge provided for US military officers and soldiers, just like a temporary dormitory building. When the warship they are assigned to work needs maintenance or encounter other problems, they can temporarily live on this ship.
The ship is off-white in appearance, 267 feet long and 68.7 feet wide, and has a total of four floors. It looks like Noah’s Ark, but it is actually a hotel on the sea. Seapower reported that the ship can accommodate up to 74 officers and 537 soldiers.
APL 67 is now crossing the Pacific Ocean via Naval Base San Diego, the largest naval base on the West Coast of the United States, and will finally arrive at Fleet Activity Yokosuka in Japan. The Yokosuka Fleet Base is the base of the US Seventh Fleet, and it is also the only important port outside the US mainland that has the function of an aircraft carrier home port. For problems that cannot be repaired or resolved here, the U.S. military will take half a month to a month to travel to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii or even the United States before they can be repaired.
With this barge, when American warships need to enter the dry dock in Yokosuka for maintenance in the future, the officers and soldiers on the ship will not have to rush to find more than 300 hotel accommodations. This barge can be easily towed to any place needed to provide accommodation services.
Although this ship has no engines and no weapons, the facilities inside are quite complete. The restaurant is very large, with 56 seats for officers and 228 seats for soldiers. In addition, there are bathrooms, classrooms, living rooms, laundry rooms, offices, gyms, barbershops and infirmaries.
The U.S. Navy also has several such barges elsewhere. The APL 67 is the first of the four newly ordered with VT Halter Marine. ◇
Editor in charge: Zhu Hanru
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