Navy fires another commanding officer, the 18th this year

Stras & Stripes ^ | September 7, 2011 | Matthew M. Burke

[dixiechick2000]

Thank you for your reply, and I will bump your very astute post!

[Stonewall Jackson]

The original USS The Sullivans, a veteran of World War Two and Korea, is a museum ship in Buffalo. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend stopping by to pay your respects. She is docked alongside the gun/missile cruiser USS Little Rock.

As an interesting aside, the new The Sullivans was very nearly attacked by Al-Qaeda on January 3, 2000 in Port Aden, Yemen. Fortunately, the small boat was so overladen with explosives that it sank. Ten months later, using a smaller amount of explosives, these terrorists launched their infamous attack on the USS Cole.

[Dick Bachert]

Thank you. This former Great Lakes kid is glad to know she didn’t wind up as steel in a new Toyota or some cheap and useless Chinese import.

[Stonewall Jackson]

Indeed. I was saddened to see the heavy cruiser Des Moines get scrapped a few years ago. There were several cities that wanted her for a museum, but they went ahead and sent her to the breakers.

At least some famous veterans managed to avoid the breakers. The submarine Archerfish, credited with sinking the largest ship lost to a submarine, was expended as a target in the Pacific, the carrier Saratoga was sunk during the Bikini Atoll tests, and the battleship Oklahoma, one of two battleships lost at Pearl Harbor, was being towed back to the West Coast for scrapping when she sank in a storm.