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At Least She's Dying with Her Boots On
Jeff gets a noble but doomed no-prize for bringing us news of USS America's curious fate:
The Navy plans to send the retired carrier USS America to the bottom of the Atlantic in explosive tests this spring, an end that is difficult to swallow for some who served on board.The Navy says the effort, which will cost $22 million, will provide valuable data for the next generation of aircraft carriers, which are now in development. No warship this size or larger has ever been sunk, so there is a dearth of hard information on how well a supercarrier can survive battle damage, said Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command.
One part of me thinks, "what a shame." But then I remember what Coral Sea looked like as she was ignominiously dismantled in Baltimore harbor and I think, "at least it's a good death."
Of course, there's also this tiny Mythbusters-like voice in the back of my head giggling about getting to blow up something that big. You can take the boy out of the playground...
If you can't keep her as a museum it's better this than to the breakers. Were that the USS Enterprise (CV-6) have suffered the same fate.
Oliver Wendal Holmes said it best in his poem Old Ironsides (That actually saved the USS Constitution)
OLD IRONSIDES
By Oliver Wendell Holmes
September 16, 1830
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered bulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
The end of another Poem about HMS Temeraire (Very Famous Ship of the Line that fought at Trafalgar)
But Trafalgar is over now,
The quarterdeck undone;
The carved and castled navies fire
Their evening gun.
O, Titan Temeraire,
Your stern-lights fade away;
Your bulwarks to the years must yield,
And heart-of-oak decay.
A pigmy steam-tug tows you,
Gigantic to the shore -
Dismantled of your guns and spars,
And sweeping wings of war.
The rivets clinch the ironclads,
Men learn a deadlier lore;
But Fame has nailed your battle-flags -
Your ghost it sails before:
O, navies old and oaken,
O, Temeraire no more!
IMHO there is just something sad about getting rid of old capital ships.
yeah - it's sad to see the old reliable ones go (I'll be especially disappointed when the Buff's are retired for a newer bomber), however, it does make way for the new hotness. and as a gadget-oriented geek (amongst other kinds of geekness), new hotness is always fun.
At least she gets the chance to say "piss off" while folks try their best to sink her.
Posted by: ron on March 25, 2005 02:37 PM