Former Navy carrier - USS Satatoga - on final voyage

[Cooley Hurd]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/22/us/carrier-final-voyage/index.html?hpt=hp_c4

(CNN) -- A storied former U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is on its final voyage Friday, a slow voyage from Rhode Island to a scrapyard in Texas.

The former USS Saratoga (CV-60), a part of the Navy's carrier fleet from 1956 to 1994, is being towed down the Atlantic Seaboard by tugboat at about 7 mph, according to a report from the Maritime Executive. The voyage is expected to take about 16 days, the Navy says.

The Navy in May announced it was paying ESCO Marine of Brownsville, Texas, one cent to take the carrier off its hands for dismantling and recycling. The company makes money by selling the metal it salvages from the ship.

Saratoga veterans were among the crowds of people who gathered on Narragansett Bay on Thursday as the ship left Naval Station Newport on its final journey.

"A ship like this shouldn't be taken apart piece by piece," Mitchell Abood, who served aboard the Saratoga from 1985 to 1987, said in an article from the U.S. Naval War College.
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[malthaussen]

1. Hey, they scrapped the Big E, didn't they?

That was such a travesty, that the country couldn't find a way to keep her as a monument, especially in view of the states that managed to cough up the dough to preserve battleships named after their states, which made far less contribution in WW2 than the Enterprise. That ship should have remained in permanent commission like the Constitution.

-- Mal

[Boom Sound 416]

3. Agreed. The wagons get all the glory

Said my Sumner Class Destroyer father

[malthaussen]

4. I tip one to your father's memory.

Two of the best books I ever read about the Pacific War were about destroyers. Without 'em, there'd have been a lot of sunk battlewagons.

-- Mal

[Boom Sound 416]

5. ...

Thanks for that.

[sdfernando]

6. The last aircraft carrier named Enterprise didnt see WW II

The USS Enterprise (CVN-65) wasn't even commissioned until 1958. It saw service in Vietnam, not WW II.

The USS Enterprise (CN-6) that served in WW II was decommissioned in 1947 and scrapped in 1958 after ten years of failed attempts to raise funds to turn it into a memorial/museum ship.

[Cooley Hurd]

9. CV-6 USS Enterprise was the storied Hornet-Class aircraft carrier of WW2

There was a concerted effort to save her back in the late 50's, but the museum-ship-concept hadn't taken off yet (that was more a 1970's thing), so she was torn apart in 1959.

CV-61, the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, was commissioned in 1961 and served until 2012. The reason they cannot make her a museum ship has to do with her nuclear powerplant (which makes no sense since both NS Savannah and SSN-571 Nautilus are nuclear-powered museum ships).

Nonetheless, USS Saratoga, CV-60, was slated to be a museum ship at one point, but no one could afford the cost of maintenance. So she's off to oblivion.

[Brother Buzz]

15. Which Enterprise was a Yorktown-class aircraft carrier?

I believe Huell Howser gave me bum information when he was visiting the Essex-class Hornet (CV-12) and mentioned in background, the Yorktown-class aircraft carriers, Hornet (CV-8) and Enterprise (CV-6). He also visited the USS Midway (CV-41). Thankfully, the Midway was a Midway-class aircraft carrier. It's all very confusing to me.

[malthaussen]

17. CV-6 was a Yorktown class carrier.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28CV-6%29

Enterprise participated in almost every significant battle in the Pacific War (she missed out on Coral Sea).

There were three Yorktown class carriers, Yorktown (CV-5), Enterprise (CV-6), and Hornet (CV-8). (CV-7, in case you're wondering, was the Wasp, of a different design from the Yorktowns.) Only CV-5 and CV-6 of the class were operational at the outbreak of the war. Ironically, although Enterprise was cut up after the war to make barstools and pinball machines, Yorktown's wreck (discovered in 1998) is still in excellent condition... three miles down.

-- Mal

[Cooley Hurd]

18. Sorry. My bad - CV-6 was a Yorktown class carrier - there was no Hornet class...

[Boom Sound 416]

2. Based in Mayport, Jacksonville, FL.

We were very proud of her and her crew in 1991.

Farewell.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. The ship I was on is still in service....in the Spanish Navy

A single memorable voyage from Yokosuka, Japan to Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Imagine, if you will, an idyllic voyage across the South China Sea punctuated by the tail end of a typhoon and several hundred marines puking into coffee cans below decks. Fortunately, they flew us back to Japan.

USS Tom Green County (LST-1159)

[Boom Sound 416]

8. ...

[Cooley Hurd]

10. That's the thing about WW2-era LST's...

Their design was as close-to-perfect for the mission as any ship-per-purpose in history.

It reminds me of the Douglas DC-3/C-47. Designed 80 years ago and the sob's still doing duty all over the world! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3

[Wounded Bear]

11. Served for about a year and a half (1972-3) on...

USS Forrestal (CV-59)

Forrestal served for nearly four decades in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. She was decommissioned in 1993, and made available as a museum. Attempts to save her were unsuccessful, however, and in February 2014 she was towed to Brownsville, Texas to be scrapped.

[Cooley Hurd]

12. The Forrestal is a sad story...

Given the horror of the 1967 fire, and the fact she was the first "supercarrier", she should've been saved as a museum/memorial.

[denbot]

19. You were on the Forrest-Fire huh.

We watched those films in damage control school, I'll never forget that Chief Petty Officer running with a little fire extinguisher, up to that burning, bomb laden plane as it detonated.

[Glassunion]

13. Isn't there a police department that can use her in their arsenal?

Just coat her in blue paint, and emboss the word "Rescue" on the side.

[Cooley Hurd]

14. It would have to be a coastal PD...

[Glassunion]

16. I was thinking Lake Lawtonka Oklahoma