Kinda sad tonight...

I was in the Army, so I don't really know. I went through my training at Ft Benning in those old wood frame fire-traps built in WW2, and they were torn down in the late 80's but I don't think it's exactly the same. I had friends who were in units which had ceased to exist in the Table of Organization (like the 501 and 503 Inf Regts, now restored, I understand, but they had been disbanded), but I don't think that's exactly the same thing either.

John Keegan, in The Price of Admiralty, says when speaking of the HMS Victory, that there's something special about a fighting ship, and the weight of history it carries, like it's the ship, not the area of ocean that the battle took place in, that is the actual battlefield. And when a ship is preserved it's like the battlefield is preserved in the actual condition as the time of the battle.

People have been lamenting the fate of great and storied ships going to the breaker's yard for at least 200 years. There's a well known painting by (I think) William Turner, called The Fighting Temereraire, showing that famous ship headed for the breakers. How close was the Constitution, and even the Victory, to being broken up at one time or another? Thank goodness we've saved as much as we have.

Al

"Doc",

Is that the USS GUAM? Didn't know they took her out that way. I can't sympathize with you (the ships I floated on are still on Active Duty) but to me it doesn't seem the way for a warship to go (as target practice). I know a lot of the ships my Dad served on were either sold to foreign navies, scrapped, or turned into museums (USS MIDWAY). I'm sorry about that Doc. She'll always be on float as long as you have memories of her.

Semper Fi!

Carl

Thanks Al, I think you are right.. the ship really was an entity of her own when we were out..

Carl, yeah that was the Guam.. some new anti shipping weapon they were working on... Thinking about this morning, maybe that is a better way for a warship to go than rotting in mothballs waiting to be sold for scrap...

Kinda sad they didn't use any of the LPH's as museums... not quiet the attraction as aircraft carriers and such... and it's understandable... there really wasn't anything to them without the air wing and marine detachment on board...

Thanks yall for letting an old sailor cry in his beer like that... I feel better now...

I could be wrong, but I think LPH-11, USS NEW ORLEANS still survived. She was supposed to become a museum down on the New Orleans riverfront. All isn't lost yet.

It is always sad to see an "old friend" go. Although I was in the Army, I felt the same thing the first time I saw a HUEY used for target practice, we served in them and they became our "friends". Sad to see them go, wish they could be preserved. But they still remain in our(and others) memories.
John
Helicopters don't fly, they beat the air into submission

Here...Here....John.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dragonfire I could be wrong, but I think LPH-11, USS NEW ORLEANS still survived. She was supposed to become a museum down on the New Orleans riverfront. All isn't lost yet.

Really? cool! I'll have to check in and make sure that is the same hull design as the Guam and see if I can find anything... it would be nice to go back and take those pics you never got to take, smell the smell of JP-5 again (although I know it won't be there) Walk through the areas I used to spend my time in...

thanks!

--Tom--

I know your pain. I served on the USS Guadalcanal (LPH-7) for 3 years (81 to 84). The Intrepid museum wanted to buy her and put her there, but funding fell short.
And one day I was one one of my Referance sites ( www.navsource.org ) and found photo's of my last ship USS Caron (DD-970) (the one I was on during Desert Storm no less) going down. Here is one of the photo's:

QUOTE: Originally posted by therriman I know your pain. I served on the USS Guadalcanal (LPH-7) for 3 years (81 to 84). The Intrepid museum wanted to buy her and put her there, but funding fell short. And one day I was one one of my Referance sites ( www.navsource.org ) and found photo's of my last ship USS Caron (DD-970) (the one I was on during Desert Storm no less) going down. Here is one of the photo's:

another survivor of a gator frieghter!!!

I saw that pic of the Caron.... that's sad... at least the Guam went quickly... The Guadalcanal, Inchon and New Orleans are the only survivors of them all according to that navsource link you sent me.

for those of you who haven't been on a ship, it really is like seing a person die in a wierd way, when it was "your" ship at least... the ship really is the men and stories attached to it.. there is a literal attachment to the ship and your "home" In a sense the ship is "alive" and we spoke of her like a person or a living thing... our brothers in green like Grandadjohn hit it right when he said about the Huey's.. "They were our friends"

here's therriman's photo 'snatched' from their website, I guess they don't allow linking...

It certainly makes you depressed...although I'm not former Navy, at this point in my life, ships are a passion...I wonder now what my reasoning for wanting tanks over ships was so many years ago.

There's a long list of ships that we as a society should have saved, not because we miss them today, but because they were historically significant back then, and we knew it...but the anxiety of war, and the desire to wipe away the images of those years of conflict, destined many to the scrapper's torch. Just off the top of my head:

USS Enterprise CV-6
USS Saratoga CV-3
USS San Francisco
USS Fletcher
any one of the Civil War Monitors
HMS Dreadnought
HMS Sheffield

I read over on Steelnavy that the Chinese have actually built a 1:1 scale model of one of their early pre-dreadnought battleships...the name escapes me at present, but this ship is beautiful...and was launched amidst much fanfare and celebration. For us, we can't even take care of the historic ships we have now (USS Olympia is rotting away). We're so concerned with everyone else's financial woes in the world that we neglect our own historical preservation...when you think about all the foriegn aid we provide to the world, why can't 50 million be put aside every couple of years and divided amongst our museum ships, battleground sites, and other historical places?

Sorry for the rant...

Jeff

QUOTE: Originally posted by Jeff_Herne There's a long list of ships that we as a society should have saved, not because we miss them today, but because they were historically significant back then, and we knew it...but the anxiety of war, and the desire to wipe away the images of those years of conflict, destined many to the scrapper's torch. Just off the top of my head: USS Enterprise CV-6 USS Saratoga CV-3 USS San Francisco USS Fletcher any one of the Civil War Monitors HMS Dreadnought HMS Sheffield

I agree wholeheartedly... the only reason the Lexington survived is because enough aviators went across her decks when she was a trainer to make a "voice" to save her be heard... there's not enough of us to save em... sadly enough... the NEw Orleans was supposed to be bought by the city of New Orleans to have as a museum... that fell through... then Long Beach wanted her, they were going to put her right next to the Queen Elizabeth... no dice there, they couldn't dish up the money the governement wanted and preserve her as well... so where is she now??? waiting to be towed off shore to be used as target practice...

As a side note... at least (through a private foundation) the CSS Hunley is getting the respect it deserves... they are moving into the preservation phase soon I understand... it would be neat one day to go see the worlds first reported sub used in combat...

Starting a rant...I thought they should have signed the Surrender (VJ Day) on the USS ENTERPRISE (CV-6) rather than the Might Mo'. That carrier was in more campaigns during Pacific Theater action than any other ship. I'm off now.

Sad to hear the NEW ORLEANS is now MIA after two cities couldn't get her. The rest of the "Sprucans" are on their way out of the Navy also. Literally only a handful left.

At least we can point to a good news story...the USS CONSTITUTION is still afloat and on Active Duty. What other country can say that they have an original warship from the 18th Century still afloat on active register? HMS VICTORY comes close, but she is on display in drydock in Portsmouth, England.

Semper Fi to all those who sailed the seas in these mighty ships and to those who flew the skies in those man-made Angels of Mercy.

I don't mean to rant.
Though there was some effort to save the USS Enterprise (CV-6), at least in a since she still serve's. Her steel went into USS Enterprise (CVN-65). My son served on her and I did get a chance to see her.
John
Helicopter's don't fly, they beat the air into submission

Found a couple of good quotes inspired by RN's 1838 decision to have the Temeraire broken up. Forgive the length of the second, but I think it's reallly well said..

"We ought not, in common gratitude, to sacrifice these noble old champions of ours, but we should have somewhere a museum of their skeletons, which our children might visit, and think of the brave deeds that were done in them. The bones of the Agammemnon and the Captain, the Vanguard, the Culloden, and the Victory ought to be sacred relics...Think of them when alive, and braving the battle and the breeze..."
William Makepeace Thackery

"No ruin was ever so affecting as the gliding of this vessel to her grave. A ruin cannot be. For whatever memories may be connected with it, and whatever witness it may have borne to the courage or glory of men, it never seems to have offered itself to their danger, and associated itself with their acts, as a ship of battle can...
And this particular vessel, crowned in the Trafalgar hour of trial with chief victory prevailing over the fatal vessel that had given Nelson death, surely, if anything without a soul deserved honour or affection, we owed them here...
...surely for these some sacred care might have been left in our thoughts, some quiet space amidst the lapse of English waters? Nay, not so.
We have stern keepers, to trust her glory to the fire and the worm. Never more shall sunset lay golden robe on her, nor starlight tremble on the waves that part at her gliding. Perhaps, where the low gate opens to some cottage garden, the tired traveller may ask, idly, why the moss grows so green on its rugged wood; and even the sailor's child may not answer, nor know, that the night-dew lies deep in the war-wounds of the wood of the old Temeraire."
John Ruskin.

Al

Well put...

Jeff

I feel for you as well. I go to Haze Grey a lot to visit the old Ranger from time to time and remember what she looked like when I reported to her. She just came out of a SLEP and was in her Sunday Best with all new paint. Now that ship is all grey and rust, and looks like a body at a funeral wake, all pale, shallow, and void of life. Its funny, my wife and people who never experienced life aboad a ship will never fathom why we have such a fondness for our ships. Well, my ship was my first home away from home, a place where I went from boyhood to manhood, a place where I met many different people from many different places, a place where I experienced pain, fear, and happiness, a place where I found adventure, and learned what compete boredom really felt like. Kinda like that old Dodge I had where I experienced my first "encounter" with the opposite sex. I will never forget the ships I served on and will feel a loss when I hear and see their demise.

I am working with members from the Oriskany at present, and they are gripping with the future sinking of that ship. However, it is getting a lot of press and fanfare, and will have a much better end than the Bennington. They cut a hole in her flightdeck, pushed the island into the hole, and sent the ship to India where it was cut up like a deer being slaughtered by a pack of wolves.

That is one ending that I really hate to see. One of our navel ships being bought by a foreign country and exploited for cheap labor and to dodge environmental regulations. I read about the Bunker Hill and when it was sold to Japan for its scrap metal. How ironic, the same country that killed so many of her crew, and could not sink her in war, was able to cut her apart and profit from her steel; and scrap steel was a comodity that Japan went to war with us over.

I'm done now

Scott

They killed my Caron?[:0]

I crossdecked for a week on her when she was in Norway in 1995. I still have my hat, but it will be cherished much more now. This makes me sad...

wow... this has been the most interesting thread I have posted on so far... First finding out there are so many sailors that felt the same way about their ships... (said proudly THEIR ships! as in ownership) But this has really raised my awareness over what is happening wholesale to the history of the US Navy... for all they speak of heritage there is none... In fact the only right I see done in the transferrence of ONE ship I researched was when they sold an LST to Spain and she is now docked at Rota... where she spent many a day in her life... and still may be gazed upon by the sailors who sailed her...

thanks Alenam for the qoutes, I have saved both and am planning some sort of something for my wall with one or the other... now If I can find a sillouette of the Guam in black...

scott, you put it better than I could... the experiences we had on the ship can never be replaced... I can still see the California bar in Haifa in my head... and remember the night we stayed at the Mt. Carmel (5 star hotel) and found out the next morning that the fridge of liqour we opened the night before was gonna cost us $300.00... then they looked both ways and said because we were sailors they would write it off...

or the hooker in a bar in Rota I just knew had a ragin case of bronchitis... so I talked to one of the doctors and he looked the other way while I pilfered some meds from the pharmacy (I was a Corpsman, medic for the non Navy types, and went on to become a Respiratory Therapist.. just so the story makes more sense to yall haha)... that next day she was waiting with her family by the ship and her family took me all over southern Spain showing me around... they appreciated I not only didn't further her business (i.e. didn't take her up on her offer) which they didn't like (her business)... but I helped her out knowing what she was...

I remember the medevacs I flew off her... the one Marine all of 18 yrs old who picked up a wierd bacterial pneumonia in Turkey... and finding out in-air refueling in a CH-53 is not all it's cracked up to be.. and also finding out from the crew chief that the hydraulic fluid leaking onto me was normal... and if it stopped would I please let him know because it meant something was wrong... we had to fly about 100ft above sealevel from Turkey to Sigonella... he'd turn blue every time we got higher that that... then there was a 3 hour plane ride to Rhine Mein and another hour by bus to Weisbaden... the doctor I flew with spent 17 yrs at the embassy in Berlin as a doctor for the Marines there and had frined in the country.. after 20+ hours with no sleep, doused in hydraulic fluid and hungry as anything... we got to this huys house and he broke out the scotch.... still can't drink the stuff today!!!!

anyway I could go on all night... but I guess this has all been good for me.. not that I was really that sad... just reflective I guess... and it was good in the fact that I went back through each memory to make sure I didn't miss even one... because the only other thing to remind me of them is gone now, well that and my ships hat...

and if nothing else I got to do what sailors do best... stand by the scuttlebutt and jack my jaws about how the grass was always greener at my last command..

Thanks to my shipmates! And my friends in green as well! And most definitely to the ones who didn't serve as well... As we used to say... I'd serve with you anytime...

The modeller formerly known as 'Doc'

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dragonfire At least we can point to a good news story...the USS CONSTITUTION is still afloat and on Active Duty. What other country can say that they have an original warship from the 18th Century still afloat on active register? HMS VICTORY comes close, but she is on display in drydock in Portsmouth, England. Semper Fi to all those who sailed the seas in these mighty ships and to those who flew the skies in those man-made Angels of Mercy.

also it's not widely known, but the Constellation is also afloat... in Baltimore Harbor.... the last all sail ship used by the Navy... in fact she was still in service until 1945 as the relief flagship of LANTFLT. Built in 1853


---Tom---

speaking of that... I just remembered I have a link to a guy who does ship prints... he draws them himself the reproduces them.. they look pretty good and it looks like he has quite a few vessel classes... he can put your name and rank at time of serving on her, any qoutes etc you might want added... you can read about it on his website: they look pretty nice

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/woodblox/myhomepage/index.htm?mtbrand=AOL_US

oh yeah Tim and Winnie... they have the Caron too...

Doc!

That is an awesome website you found! Thanks for sharing. My Dad had seven different ships during his career and every single one of them has been decommed. One survived to be a museum.

Semper Fi!

Carl

QUOTE: Originally posted by Dragonfire Doc! That is an awesome website you found! Thanks for sharing. My Dad had seven different ships during his career and every single one of them has been decommed. One survived to be a museum. Semper Fi! Carl

Thanks Carl... I would love to get one for my dad but he was with Amphibious Landing Craft squadrons most of his career and I didn't see any LCM's or LST's on that sight haha... he's retired now and in the Coast Guard Auxillary maybe I'll look up any of the cutters stationed near here...

Interestingly, the USS North Carolina would also be lying on the bottom of the sea had it not been for all the dimes collected by students in the public schools around 1960-61. Turns out there was a big "save the North Carolina" fund in the works. Thanks in part to that effort, we can enjoy a great historical exhibit in Wilmington, NC. It was fun being part of that effort.

Gip Winecoff

I left my destroyer (USS O'BRIEN DD 725) in 1961. In the 80s I learned she'd been "expended as a target" in 1972. This year I found pictures of her sinking on a website < destroyersonline.com >. The final shot shows her broken in half and the bow and stern both pointed skyward. Yes, it's choked me up. She was my home for awhile and her crews were my brothers. She was blooded by a German shore battery right after the D-Day invasion in 1944; rebuilt and hit by a KamiKaze at Okinawa in 1945: rebuilt and served in Korea; modernized and served in Vietnam. I'm glad she was put to rest by friends: the men of the Seals and UDT. She earned the right of that honor.
I wish someone marketed a model of a Sumner class tincan of the 1950s, before the Fram modernization, in 1:350.

Although I served as a Marine I did 2 WESPACS one on the Tuscaloosa (if I remember correctly) and another that that I cant remember offhand. We had some great times on board, sometimes nothing more than sitting up on deck playing spades and watching the seasick heave over the sides. We met some great people on board and got to see a lot of the world so to all you fellas that served on board ships thank you.

I just seen on the navsource website that of the 4 ship's I was on, the only one still in commission (the USS Stump DD-978) is due to be decommed on Oct 19, 2004

I guess I'm getting old.

QUOTE: Originally posted by cplchilly Although I served as a Marine I did 2 WESPACS one on the Tuscaloosa (if I remember correctly) and another that that I cant remember offhand. We had some great times on board, sometimes nothing more than sitting up on deck playing spades and watching the seasick heave over the sides. We met some great people on board and got to see a lot of the world so to all you fellas that served on board ships thank you.

Chilly... do you know to this day I can't stand the sight, nor the sound of the word "Spades" or even "Hearts" to a lesser degree I think my two deployments combined I played a total of 3,297.5 hands of the two combined... the .5 is the night I had to cut out early because the next day I had watcht... cirbbage I never got into but that was mentioned as much...

In 1986/7 during my first cruise I saw "Ferris Beullers Day Off" 1,924 times thanks to Weapons Platoon with 24th MAU who the team I was with bunked with.... every night at 20:00 a collective groan came out of us squid minded guys... the platoon leader immediately stood up and wanted to know who the h@ll did that hahha.. it was his tape and his VCR and he'd fight anyone who wanted to change the movie...

During my second deployment I berthed with Battalion Recon, 2/6 Battalion, 26th MEU(SOC)... I watched "I Love Lucy" re-runs along with a sniper (that was HIS tape and you watch it or face his wrath! (pretty buff guy)) till I dreamed *I* was Ricky Ricardo and Lucy was my b.... well you get the picture..

haha but I loved being out with yall... I don't think I would have wanted it any other way... my dad is a former marine and so was his dad etc.. etc.. etc.. about 5 generations back... one of the nice things about being a Doc... when we were on liberty we didn't have to worry about getting in fights with Navy people (cause of you Marines), the locals were no prob(cause of yall)... and a Marine would never touch a Doc... and best of all a Marine would go up against Goliath himself (or even another Marine) to help out Doc... (poor old drunk Doc, I should say haha)

Semper Fi to all my little green sea sick Marine friends... and to my shipmates, I say fair winds and a following sea! And to my Army buddies (I had the chance to serve at Ft. Sam going to Respiratory Therapy School at AMMED for over a year, honorary member of the Army Medical Battalion or something like that, lost the certificate) You're my little green friends too... I gained a lot of respect for the Army during that time... but they needed to teach yall better rank and recognition in basic! Everytime I went to the PX about 50 Privates up to PFC's would be standing outside the PX with an Ice Cream cone in their hands saluting me because I had birds on my collar! (wearing my Eisenhower) haha (the NCO rank badges have an eagle over the chevrons) they probably thought I was the youngest colonel known to the US Navy!

Thanks to all of yall for replying to this post, military, and non-miltary types as well!!!! It was kind of cathartic for me, and it was nice to see others felt similar about losing a icon of your life... whether it was a Huey, a model of a ship, or your home, your love, your entire town for years...

Wow... I think I might have hit on something... when we were out to sea, except for liberty.. we were a self enclosed community... I guess it would be like going back to the city where you lived as a kid and find it has been totally destroyed... I guess that would help explain it to someone who hasnt been underway, or like Granddad said "lost a friend" BTW I like that Grandad... it explains a lot... these things were real.. not made out of metal.. but made of the love for them of the people who were on them... Huey, Ship, Tank, etc...

---Tom---

QUOTE: Originally posted by therriman I just seen on the navsource website that of the 4 ship's I was on, the only one still in commission (the USS Stump DD-978) is due to be decommed on Oct 19, 2004 I guess I'm getting old.

We're both getting old Tim... the Guam was commisioned the year before I was born... the Austin 2 yrs before I was born... both ships were or are over 40.. (Austin is still in commision, it was built on the lines of the Mt. Whitney so can be used as a command and control ship... (LCC) the others are all decom as far as I know)

My dad was already a SGT, USMC when they were commisioned... I was but a very far off twinkle in his eye...

Of course until 1992 or so the Lexington was still flying sailors off its' decks every day... 1943 to 1992ish... but she was an icon of a different time, WWII.... the two I was on were icons of Viet Nam... that could account for some... plus the fact that by 1992 the aviators who trained on her decks post Nam were now CAPT and perhaps above may have helped her survival...

---Tom---

Tom,

There a a lot of the LPHs still around both East and West Coast. Like mentioned earlier, the AUSTIN is still pumping. Here are a couple of West Coast active duty LPHs with Vietnam ribbons on the bridge wings:

USS DULUTH
USS DUBUQUE
USS DENVER
USS AUSTIN
USS JUNEAU

Semper Fi!

Carl