Posted on 06/23/2009 7:37:27 PM PDT by naturalman1975
TOWNSVILLE has been forced to turn away a US warship and its 3600-strong crew, which would have brought more than $1 million a day to the port city.
The USS Essex, a 258m-long amphibious assault vessel, has been diverted to Cairns for an eight-day shore leave, including the popular Fourth of July celebrations.
Outraged Townsville tour operators are facing millions in losses, empty hotel rooms, cancelled tours and more than 400 seats booked for the North Queensland Cowboys home game as a result of the embarrassing backdown.
Cairns officials yesterday welcomed the big-spending US seamen and the predicted $10 million injection into the economy.
Townsville Port Authority this week told US military officials they were unable to accommodate the giant helicopter and troop carrier due to "commercial bookings" in the only two suitable berths.
Port chief executive Barry Holden said US, not Townsville, officials made the call to divert to Cairns.
"Naval visits are always subject to commercial arrangements, and that is a risk you run," Mr Holden said.
Only three out of eight days were available for the proposed eight-day visit from June 29 to July 6, he said.
US military and the USS Essex are headed to northern Australia to take part in next month's joint Exercise Talisman Sabre involving 30,000 troops. US navy personnel on shore leave spend an estimated $350 a day; based on 3600 visiting seamen, that's more than $1.2 million a day.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
There used to be a lot of ships visiting Portland, Oregon during the Rose Festival, until 9/11 happened. Then it seemed to go way down. Don’t know what happened...
http://www.rosefestival.org/events/fleet/
A loss for Townsville but a win for Cairns. Either way, Australia tourism gets a boost and our sailors need a break. It’s also good to know that Independence Day for shore leave will be celebrated in a friendly nation.
Seamen spend $350 a day on shore leave?<p.Evidently NOT saving up any of their pay.
Eh, given the relative infrequency of liberty ashore I’m sure most of them return to our nation with healthy bank accounts. Also, keep in mind, they don’t all go in for all of the days.
Oddly, they don't visit San Francisco as much as they used to, either.
Back in the 1950s, as a Mean Wittle Kid, my family took me across the Bay Bridge, and on board the USS Missouri.
In the 1960s, my wife's family took her, as a Snotty Teenager, across the Bay Bridge and on board the I forget which ship(s) for Fleet Week.
Can't imaging what has happened since to change that.../S>
The sailors will love Cairns. I was there for four days and wish I was there for four more.
Could part of the reason have been that Mayor who liked to date Islamofascists or something? She was a regular problem child as I recall.
Talking about the USS Missouri...
After calls at Long Beach and San Francisco, Missouri arrived in Seattle on 15 September 1954. Three days later she entered Puget Sound Naval Shipyard where she decommissioned on 26 February 1955, entering the Bremerton group, Pacific Reserve Fleet.
Upon arrival in Bremerton, Missouri was moored at the last pier of the reserve fleet berthing. This placed her very close to the mainland, and she served as a popular tourist attraction, logging about 180,000 visitors per year, who came to view the “surrender deck” where a bronze plaque memorialized the spot where Japan surrendered to the Allies, and the accompanying historical display that included copies of the surrender documents and photos. A small cottage industry grew in the civilian community just outside the gates, selling souvenirs and other memorabilia. Nearly thirty years passed before Missouri next returned to active duty.
[ ... ]
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the absence of a perceived threat to the United States came drastic cuts in the defense budget, and the high cost of maintaining and operating battleships as part of the United States Navy’s active fleet became uneconomical; as a result, Missouri was decommissioned on 31 March 1992 at Long Beach, California.
[ ... ]
Missouri remained part of the reserve fleet at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, until 12 January 1995, when she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register. On 4 May 1998, Secretary of the Navy John H. Dalton signed the donation contract that transferred her to the nonprofit USS Missouri Memorial Association (MMA) of Honolulu, Hawaii. She was towed from Bremerton on 23 May to the Port of Astoria, Oregon, where she sat in fresh water at the mouth of the Columbia River to kill and drop the saltwater barnacles and sea grasses that had grown on her hull in Bremerton, then towed across the eastern Pacific, and docked at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor on 22 June, just 500 yards (about 450 meters) from the Arizona Memorial. Less than a year later, on 29 January 1999, Missouri was opened as a museum operated by the MMA.
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Missouri_(BB-63) ]
I visited the USS Missouri, too, when she was at Bremerton, Washington. I missed seeing her again, as I was hoping to do, in Astoria, Oregon, on the way to Hawaii...
I started to post poor hookers!! But you covered it!!
Ditto
Cairns is a party hearty town, warm and welcoming.
In an odd turn, I worked with one of the former MAyors of that good city while in RUssia (well, the CIS).
Very nice fellow - many of our crew took one of thier off-shift breaks there and had a grand time.
Hope the Navy leaves at least some of the town intact....
You asked — Could part of the reason have been that Mayor who liked to date Islamofascists or something? She was a regular problem child as I recall.
—
I don’t know about that, but I do know that it’s continued that way, to the present. And the security was incredibly tight after 9/11, when prior to that, everyone was used to wandering right up next to the ships and looking around.
After the attack, they had armed patrols that were never there before and you couldn’t get close to the ships like you could before and there were people really watching the crowds. I got stared at a lot, when I was taking pictures of the ships..., as I always did, before, in the past.
And the small boats that would travel up and down the Willamette River at other times, with no problems — couldn’t do so without an armed Coast Guard escort, going in formation, past the Navy ships...
The US Navy doesn’t make reservations two days in advance; it’s normally more like 6 months in advance. This was screwed up by some lefties in the town due to get the money - politics over bucks.
Even the Powerpuff Girls can’t save the day.
/Had to be said.
Too bad for Townsville. Sailors on shore leave tend to spend like... well, you know.
When I visited her in (according to your post) 1954, as an 8 YO, I would have still fit inside one of the main battery’s gun barrels.
Since then, we’ve visited (along with many others) the USS Alabama, USS North Carolina; CSS Hunley, USS Hornet, USS Yorktown, USS Ranger, USS Enterprise....
Took my only Navy Reserve cruise (other than weekends) aboard USS Laws, DD-558; her last, or nearly so, cruise before decommissioning.
Ahhh..., great moments in history, eh? :-)
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