Posted on 09/24/2010 10:14:46 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
USS Enterprise: The aircraft carrier that changed everything turns 50
Task Force One, headed by the USS Enterprise, left Gibraltar on a trip around the world. The task force was comprise of three nuclear-powered surface vessels. Crewmen of the Enterprise formed the famous Einstein equation, E=mc2, on the flight deck symbolizing the development of nuclear propulsion. (Daily Press archive, Daily Press / September 22, 2010)
By Peter Frost, pfrost@dailypress.com | 247-4744
11:28 AM EDT, September 24, 2010
NEWPORT NEWS — Fifty years ago today the largest dry dock in the world filled with water from the James River, setting afloat the world's largest ship and first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
At 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 24, 1960, Mrs. William B. Franke, wife of the Secretary of the Navy, smashed a bottle of champagne across the bow of the USS Enterprise as the rushing seawater freed it from its last keel block.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Arleigh A. Burke told some 12,000 guests at the christening ceremony that the 1,101-foot Big E was "the largest ship ever built of any kind by any nation," containing the most powerful nuclear power plant ever constructed anywhere in the world.
Yard president William E. Blewett Jr. paid tribute to the thousands of workers who "labored with imagination, skill and pride to build a vessel worthy of its name."
Today, the Enterprise sits across the harbor at Naval Station Norfolk, preparing for two final, six-month deployments before it's decommissioned in 2012.
Neither the Navy nor the ship's crew has planned an event to celebrate the milestone, preferring to wait until Nov. 25, 2011, the 50th anniversary of the Enterprise becoming an official member of the fleet.
Nonetheless, when the one-of-a-kind supercarrier was launched that Saturday five decades ago, it
(Excerpt) Read more at dailypress.com ...
Must Red Bull, I know I would remember beer.
Here's a true story for you about The Big E.
Back in the spring of 66 I was attending second class diving school in Subic. Big E was moored at Cubi Point. We got a work order for a diving job on Enterprise. The engineering dept needed to re-pack the #2 rudder post. Our job was to install a "dam" underwater around the post so ship's co could loosen the packing ring, insert new packing, re-tighten the packing gland.
We had the diving barge tied up to the stern of E during the op. We had a lot of standing around time waiting for the word for us to remove the dam.
It was at this point, one of the SRF divers took a chipping hammer and started chipping the paint on the stern about 6-8 ft above the waterline. In big 12" bold letters, he signed his name -"HUEY".
It may have read ENTERPRISE up near the main deck, but HUEY was etched in near the waterline.
I also think that at the time the Enterprise did not yet have a Nimitz class style superstructure. That made it a give-away that it was not actually the Big E.
Haze gray and underway for 50 years. Who would have thought that the US Government could actually make a good investment. And the funny thing is that at 50 years old she is still more capable than any of the other carriers in the world. In fact she may be more capable than anything the rest of the world even has on the drawing board.
Enterprise lost her beehive and phased array radars during her early 80’s refit, so before STIV. She’s never had a Nimitz style island, it’s still square/blockish and very distinctive.
The only ships that were at Pearl Harbor on that day that still exist are the Arizona and Utah. I’ve read that the Arizona is near collapse.
It was Star Trek 4, and they were not on the Enterprise. That was filmed in a Main Mach. Space on the USS Saratoga in port at NAS North Island, located on Coronado Island in San Diego. I was stationed on the USS Kitty Hawk that was tied to the same pier at the time. I always laughed when I saw the movie as they were collecting radiation from the “Enclosed Operating Space” on a conventional carrier, no reactor on board at all.
my nephew is serving on the Enterprise, very cool. his whole family have been star trek fanatics for years so it’s even more cool.
Heh heh...we used to do something like that in the helo community. If a helo from another squadron happened to land on the deck of our ship for some reason (usually to drop off mail bags), somebody with a can of spray paint and a custom stencil made just for such occasions would run out to the idling helo and spray a ‘tag’ somewhere unobtrusive for them to discover later. Everybody did it.
Actually it was the USS Ranger (CV-61), USS Saratoga (CV-60) and the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) that can be seen sitting at the pier. All three were in port when it was filmed.
I served aboard the USS Bainbridge DLGN-25,(the top ship in the picture) from 9/69 to 1/74 as a Missile Fire Control Tech. Got to go to the ‘E’ for a USO show. Looking down the passageway at the receding hatch combings was like looking at a picture of infinity. It’s fantail was higher than our bridge.
Oftentimes, after hitting a high point anything afterwards will seem like a failure. The third year was so good, it was impossible to come up with anything better or anywhere near as good.
If the fourth year was as good as the third, the series most likely would have run longer but there was little or no continuity in the fourth years especially nothing as well done as the third year epic conflict.
The Long Beach is long gone, I think.
The Iowa will likely never sail again unless she’s towed to a dock for tourism which seems unlikely due to cost.
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I'm getting just really tired of naming capital ships after political "heroes" ......
Carl Vinson? Carl Vinson?! Carl Vinson?! For God's sake ......
We ought to name one supersized garbage scow USS Politician and her sister ship USS Lobbyist, and sail them around the harbors of both coasts, collecting refuse.
But there are so many deserving politicians who really like boats and stuff and ever so much want to have aircraft carriers and nuclear fast-attack submarines named after them and really did so help out ever so much at appropriations time and it really is "their turn" .......
</sneer> </sarc>
Do you know what happened to him?
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