[rlmorel]

I once saw a book in a bookstore and paged through it...it was a book of photographs of US Navy ships that were being broken up for scrap.

It saddened me in a way that I am sure many people would find puzzling, but there was one picture that really hit me in a way that kind of made me understand why I felt that way.

It was a WWII heavy cruiser, and the entire bow had been sawed right off from about the second current forward.

Looking at it was like looking at the face of a woman that has been disfigured in some way, almost as if it would look if her nose was simply removed from her face, and a gaping hole was left there.

I have never been able to find that book, and I have looked.

I feel that an inanimate object like a warship does acquire something from the thousands of sailors who pass through her. But I also know that special “something” doesn’t exist in HER, per se, but does palpably exist in the minds and hearts of those sailors.

So, it does exist.

[South Dakota]

I never saw her but I still miss the USS South Dakota. BB 57.
There was no use for her except as a museum piece and we have plenty of those.
I still think that it should be the USS Pennsylvania at Pearl instead of the Missouri

[onedoug]

I feel that way about USS Ogden, LPD 5, and I was in Army armor, transported aboard off Vietnam but for a few days.

Went down to San Diego about 25 years later, invited by the XO, and had a truly great time sharing her history with my daughter.

But alas, now she’s gone to the scrapyard, to know no other crew ever again.

Another beauty gone.

[onedoug]

What's worse, they sank it.

Beautiful lady. I wonder who got the ship's bell.