Remove your covers and bow your heads for a sad lady...

Unfortunately this is becoming all to common a sight now days.

She looks a little better than the pics on Haze Grey. Here are some pics of her going to Texas.
http://www.ussoriskany.com/id18.html

Notice the one of her passing the Lexington.
Scott

I really wish they would save her and make her a museum. Even after all was said a month or two ago. That is such a tragedy to take a ship with such a wonderful and colorful history to take and sink her. I just think it is wrong. Period!

QUOTE: Originally posted by jimz66 I really wish they would save her and make her a museum. Even after all was said a month or two ago. That is such a tragedy to take a ship with such a wonderful and colorful history to take and sink her. I just think it is wrong. Period!

Personally I think I'd rather see her as a reef and know she still has a purpose, than know she was broken up and scrapped. It just seems like a more fitting ending.

Either way its a sad end or a fine old lady.
Greg

Truly sad, but better she becomes an artificial reef than be cut up into razor blades.
A more noble ending to see her buried at sea. She's far too deteriorated to become a museum, and with four other Essex-class museums, it would be hard to justify.

Paul I respectfully disagree. You can fix anything if the money and the effort are there. Which apparently niether are in this case. It is a shame that such a ship with such proud part of the Navy's and the Nation's history would just be trown away like this. For those of us who want to see her and others saved this is a shear tragedy. Not ment for the faint hearted. Just such a shame to see this happening. Now I know that four of her sisters exist but you know what, there are plenty of ports that don't have one. How about Pearl or New Orleans or Orlando, if someone really wanted to find a home for her other than the bottom of the ocean it could be done.

I too think that this is a sad end for a great lady. On the other hand I think a burial at sea is a better option than seeing her go to the torches. I will hopefully be able to make it down the see her slip beneath the waves. When I do I will remove my hat and shed a tear for her, but I also will be looking forward to visiting her in the future with some of my diving buddies.

Scott how deep are they sinking her? Do you know? Where are they actually going to put her?

Jimz66,
don't get me wrong; I'd love to see Oriskany become a museum, anywhere, but with the troubles the other carrier museums are seeing, it's just not likely to happen. I saw some closeups of her on another site (can't remember the link right now) but she's in BAD shape.

And for Scott, the last I read, she was going to be sunk deep - 600 feet or more, so as to be beyond most divers' range.
Paul

Yeah I think I know what site you are referring too. I have seen one like that. Just look up CV-34 USS Oriskany on Yahoo or some other search engine. It'l come up. Thanks.

I was on the Ranger during the closing days of Vietnam. We called the Oriskany the "Toasty O" because of all the fires she always seemed to have. She was driven hard and put up wet and the the sailors I knew from her crew weren't all that fond of her. I agree that making a reef with her would be the lesser of the evils but they should sink her in shallower water in order to make her more accesilble to sport divers. The downside to that would be the likely chance of the divers becoming lost in the labrynth of her passageways. It's easy enough to get lost on a CV even when they're sitting pierside.

I'll bet, and I am sure that is why they are sinking her so deep.