Warbird Information Exchange

First, let's invent a time machine. Then go back in time to when
Bull Halsey was leading the effort to save the USS Enterprise.
Take back enough money to save it and maintain it through the
years. Fast Forward to the '90s and populate the flight deck and
hanger deck with restored WWII USN aircraft. The Lake Birds
come to mind as one source. No better way to showcase US
Naval Aviation! Now where did I put that flux capacitor..........


Q. What are the two stupidist things the USN ever did??

A. Cut up the Enterprise and nuke the Saratoga ......

The other bad thing was letting the California, and other BBs be scrapped in 1959. Criminal in my opinion.

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Hang The Expense

But where does it end? A lot of ships had storied combat histories, but they are really big, hard to maintain, and have a lot of useful metal tied up in them. And most of them got updated to the point where they were only (or not even) superficially like their WWII selves. How many should have been saved? If more, where would we put them? A lot of U.S. coastal cities have a museum ship on the waterfront somewhere, and not all of the rest want one.

I think we have actually done well, within realistic limits, at preserving a representative group of WWII-era warships. If there were a couple more that I wish we had taken the opportunity to preserve, they would be the Prinz Eugen and the Nagato, just for the sake of having some surviving exemplars of their countries' technology.

August

Out of all the carriers we have saved Big E should have been at the top of the list.

She was a fleet carrier from Pearl to Tokyo, and survived.

The Cabot also make me sick.

Amen brother!!!!! That is exactly what I mean.
I love all the Essex class CVs that have been
saved. But to be able to walk the decks of
Enterprise??? That would be another level....

and Sara..........and Cabot!!!!!!!!!!!

August brings up a very good point. As much as we would love to see these beautiful ships saved it can be difficult to find a final resting place as a floating museum. These ships are very expensive to maintain over the years. Just look at how much it will cost to restore the USS Intrepid ($60 MILLION ).

One has to look no further than the Cruiser "OLYMPIA" which helped destroy the Spanish Fleet at Manila in 1898. She has been sitting as a floating museum since her decommission in 1922. The ship is in desperate need of drydock repairs & maintenance which hasn't happened due to the lack of funds.

John

Yep, saving the Enterprise should have been a no-brainer. Preserving at least 1 of the Pearl Harbor battleships should have been done as well. Walking the decks of the West Virginia considering what she'd been through would have been something.

But hindsite is always 20-20 isn't it.

Even smaller ships, such as the Nicholson, the most decorated US destroyer of World War II and the Heerman, the only surviving destroyer from the Battle off Samar, fell to the cutting torch. Surely a destroyer would be easier to maintain?

One only has to look at the whole Cabot fiasco that unfolded a few years ago. Here we had the last of the CVLs, the last WWII carrier with an original straight deck. All it was going to take was $180,000 to keep the scrap man at bay, and no one came up with the money, not even the NHC.

You don't need a flux capacitor to go back three weeks and see what I had to say on the subject in J.C. Seixas' "If you could go back in time..." thread!



So, I like your thinking, Owen -- the only thing I'd have done differently is collect all the airplanes before they went to the bottom of Lake Michigan (I mean I'd have a time machine after all!)

At the time of her demise, the Enterprise was the finest representative example of a class of warship that revolutionized sea power forever -- and a staggeringly significant individual example of an American fighting ship (with the 20 battle stars to prove it). Her scrapping was an irreplacable loss to our shared heritage.

Our generation was given one last chance to make up for it about 8 years ago, but the USS Cabot (CVL-28 ) slipped away as well.

I had the chance to walk her deck briefly before she was gone and even in her deplorable condition it was an incredibly powerful experience. I only wish my children and grandchildren could have had that opportunity as well...

Wow, I saw her in New Orleans after a conference there before she was
gone, but not open...

any chance you had a camera when you walked the decks? Pictures?

hh

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"The best way to control the future is to create it".

I'm with Owen! How many ships, period can claim 20 Battle Stars! I STILL say that if anyone(You reading this Tom Hanks) wanted to do an epic WWII movie, The Big E has it wraped up in spades! The Enterprise was in the thick of it from beginning to end, running with(and ahead) of the big dogs all the way! Seeing her scrapped was probably what killed Bull Halsey(not some pesky terminal desease or other, Those wouldn't have DARED! ).

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I never said the jokes were Good, they're just Free! You gets whatchyas pays for!

The problem was that many of the cities that could have easily given Cabot a home were clawing over each other in a "Forrestal Frenzy". The Forrestal was decommissioned and it thought to be a foregone conclusion that she would be preserved as a museum. IIRC correctly, Baltimore, Tampa and perhaps one other city were vyying for Forrestal.

I know Baltimore in particular was one of the cities that was approached for the Cabot, but they turned her down because they wanted Forrestal and thought they would get her, even though they were a longshot bid at the time. So far, it looks like no one is getting Forrestal as she is on the list to become an artificial reef, and Cabot met her fate.

The History Channel was approached on the Cabot and they basically said they had never heard of the ship

For pics of the Cabot, as well as a slew of other ships, check this website out:

http://www.navsource.org

You can find yourself literally spending hours browsing the site.

Besides the Cabot.

I think some "recent' (even though it was 30 and 17 years ago) mistakes were:

CVA-19 USS Hancock, "The Hanna"

- A veteran of both World War 2 and Vietnam. Commisioned in 1944 and scrapped in 1976.








CVA-34 USS Oriskany, "The Mighty "O"

-A veteran of both the Korean War and Vietnam. So many chances were afforded to save this girl by defaulting scrapper and yet she wasn't. Atleast in some form she still exists. Commisioned in 1950 and struck from the Naval Registar in 1989














CVA-43 USS Coral Sea, "The Ageless Warrior"

-And the last one that tops my list . Commisioned 1947 and struck off the Naval Registar in 1990. She was carved up down to her keel without dignity.









moored for the last time in Baltimore:







Shay
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Semper Fortis

I also got to go aboard Cabot when she was in N.O. It was a surreal
experience. Although we were the only ones aboard it was if the crew
had just gone ashore. There were charts, headphones, and binocs in
the pilot house. Thre were other personal articles strewn about. It
was quite spooky. If I was a thief I could have collected some great souvenirs.

The bottom line is that she met a tragic end that should never have
happened. In a perfect world I would have liked to see her at Battleship
Park in Mobile. After Katrina it's probably better that didn't happen.
But I SURE WISH THE last STRAIGHT DECK CARRIER SHOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED................

National geographic channel "seconds from disaster" featuring the "Fire on the Forrestal"..........................making me pissed again that this ship is not being saved!!!!!!!!!

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005