Saving History

[Stearmen]

These are very depressing videos, watch them only if you have a strong stomach! The first is the USS Enterprise CV-6 being toed to her final scrapping, and the second is the USS Tautog SS-199 being scrapped. The Enterprise was at almost every battle in the Pacific, and helped turn the tide of the war. Tautog sank 26 Japanese ships, making her the highest scoring American submarine of WWII. Unfortunately, the late 50s were a low point in preservation in the states, most people just wanted to forget the war, so saving some old ships was not even on their radar! It would be nice to walk the decks of these two veterans. [video=youtube;RQpOQA3xbjg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQpOQA3xbjg&feature=related [/video] [video=youtube;sUq53WOVmYw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUq53WOVmYw[/video]

 

[Shangas]

Some ships from WWII (and before) have survived as museum ships.

The U.S.S. Lexington was an aircraft carrier in WWII. It's a museum ship.

So is the U.S.S. Constitution "Old Ironsides" and the H.M.S. Victory in England.

I believe there's also one or two what were called 'Liberty Ships', still afloat in the U.S.

 

[Jeff M]

The U.S.S. Hornet is also still afloat....a museum at what was the Alameda Naval Air Station in the SF Bay Area.

 

[DNO]

HMCS Haida, Tribal Class Destroyer from WWII, is a museum in Hamilton, Ontario and HMCS Sackville is the last surviving Corvette from WWII. It's in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

 

[Stearmen]

Yes, but, all of those were saved in more recent years, 1980s on. I was only talking about U.S. ships. Iron Side was saved long before WWII. And the USS Oregon was scraped during WWII. The Greatest Generation wasn't much into saving the past, there were a few, but most just wanted to get on with life, and leave the war behind! Recently, some have stepped forward, the PT Boats and Liberty ships, but not much in the 50s. Even the Air Force Museum scraped planes back then.

 

[Shangas]

Scrapped. Not scraped. If you scraped something, you rubbed it along a rough surface. If you scrapped something, you chucked it in the bin.

 

[Stearmen]

Scrapped. Not scraped. If you scraped something, you rubbed it along a rough surface. If you scrapped something, you chucked it in the bin.

If you noticed, I spelled Scrapping right in my organelle post! It's my new spell check, for some reason it did not like Scrapped even though it was spelled correctly, I clicked ignore all, which I now know tells the program to pick a word that it thinks is the word you want. I should have reread the article. My new remote key board is also making my I lower case for some reason and dropping letters I have pushed at random. Got to love technology there Mr. English professor! We don't use bins for disposal.

 

[plain old dave]

May well be off topic, but as this is history, too, I thought it would be OK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Inn

The Alexander Inn in Oak Ridge, TN (aka "The Guest House" during the days of the Clinton Engineer Works) was the Transient Quarters for our 1/3 of the Manhattan Project. The guest book contains names like Fermi, Oppenheimer, Groves and Bush. You could make a strong case that the Second World War was ***won*** about 2-3 blocks from where I type. Probably the single most important and most endangered Historic Site in the entire State of TN, the City of Oak Ridge seems content to let it fall down.

 

[Treetopflyer]

I don’t necessarily think that it was because they wanted to forget about the war, I am sure that may have been part of it. I think it had to do more with the fact that there was so much equipment left after the war that people thought it would probably be around forever. Plus, their military service was over and they went back to their lives, not thinking about how “historical” what they did was.

Not to mention the cost of running museum ships. We are on the verge of losing the USS Olympia because no one can afford the upkeep of the ship. Everyone always asks “Why don’t we make this ship or that ship into a museum”. We could, but who would pay for it? Even ships that are kept in moth balls have a cost with keeping them preserved.

 

[Stearmen]

USS Olympia

You can bet that if Graceland needed $20 million in repairs, the money would be there over night! Why haven't they tried a plan like the Statue of Liberty, where kids sent in their pennies? Today, it would be $1.00, only 20 million kids, thats nothing!

 

[Treetopflyer]

I agree with you Stearmen, but there is just not enough funding to save ALL of the historic ships. In the case of the Olympia, there are several groups that are trying to raise the money to save her. My honest opinion is that they should put her in a permanent covered dry dock. That would save on the cost of repairs that are needed from damaged caused by the sea and salt air.

I think that it is only in the last twenty to thirty years that people have seen the historical significance in saving our history for future generations, especially the history from WWII.