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 ...
Really? Until I retired a couple months ago, I commuted daily to Ford Island. Never heard anything about the Arizona collapsing. Hell, it is sitting on the bottom, where could it go? Maybe some upper decks might fall in, but not much else.
The superstructure was removed a long time ago. A bunch of it was dumped down on the tip of Waipio peninsula, got to check it out a few times. Just a lot of riveted, rusting metal now.
It's a shame the Utah is off limits to most. There is a nice memorial on the pier if you have base access.
The USS Massachusetts is tied up at Battleship Cove in Fall River, MA. It’s just off I-95. The Massachusetts engaged the French warship Jean Bart in 1942, and participated in Operation Torch (the U S landing in French Morocco). She then went to the Pacific and fought in the Solomons campaign and the battle for Leyte Gulf.
In late 1944, the Navy had started construction on 4 (I believe) large carriers, which wer quickly scrapped after V-J day..do you have any info on them? Thanks
The only heavy carriers discontinued upon conclusion of the war that I’m aware of were the long-hulled Essex class, considerably more than 4 and all of which were scrapped, and the Midway class (4 planned, one completed) and the rest scrapped.
... actually, not all of the long hulled Essexes were scrapped, several were.
Damn, don’t listen to me... three Midways were completed, the rest cancelled.
Thanks..I’ll do some more digging..
We were talking about that a couple of nights ago. The theory was that if the Might Mo fired all of it’s guns at the same time in the same direction ( either exactly port or starboard ) the recoil would flip the ship over. I think that well known picture was the test of that and the ship was OK.
“There was a FReeper whose handle was B-Chan who served on the Enterprise. But it’s like he’s never existed. “The requested document does not exist on this server.”
Do you know what happened to him?”
He was one of the guys in the Philadelphia experiment.
To add ... the final tally for the Essex class (understanding that there were multiple sub-classes that could be referred to as the Ticonderoga Class, the Hancock Class, the Oriskany Class, etc) was 24 completed ships (I’ll refrain from naming all of them).
The final tally for the Midway class was 3 completed ships (Midway CVB-41, Franklin D. Roosevelt CVB-42 and Coral Sea CVB-43). CVB-42 was laid down as Coral Sea, but the name was moved to CVB-43 after FDR died and CVB-42 was renamed in his memory.
There should always be an Enterprise in the fleet. Always.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
I ‘signed’ a petition yesterday to name the next carrier Enterprise.
Let me tell you -- the "E" is one HUGE structure -- visible from miles away across Narraganset bay! I can't imagine what a thrill it would be to see her underway at speed....
Interesting. Hard to imagine the debris getting out into the main channel though, think it would just fall right next to the hulk. And nothing navigates near the Arizona other than tour boats. The big carriers do dock on the other side of the channel there, so I could see some concern.
btw, the Missouri had just come out of dry dock with a new paint job and looked like a brand new battleship. The paint looked to be about 1/4 inch thick and other than the small dent on the edge of the main deck where a kamikaze had hit and bounced off, she looked perfect.
Got video (illegal, but everyone was doing it) of the Missouri getting towed out after the redo, past Bldg 38 where I worked. So damn close I could not go wide enough angle to get the whole ship, so I panned back and forth. Beautiful ship, classic lines. Did a tour several months earlier, and the rust was very apparent, needed the facelift bad.
The rails were lined with sailors that had reenlisted on her as a special ceremony before leaving the drydock.
Ya ought to see the goofy "camo" utilities the sailors get to wear: a sort of black with blue motif. Dunno where that will blend in..........Camo for Air Force, camo for sailors, where will it end? Camo for Coast Guard?
I have to add that I had no idea the US had lost so many submarines in the war. Each submarine memorial stands on a stone pillar in a circle with each submarine's name, officers and crew names on a brass plate.
We also took a day and visited the Big Island to see the volcano. It's a 20 minute flight, then a bus ride to the “pit.”
We had been looking down into the crater for about half an hour, hacking and coughing from the smoke and dust when a US Parks Service guy emerged from the gift shop wearing a gas mask. He ordered us all inside because the volcano was giving off too much SO2.
This was one of the more amusing episodes, along with the Norwegian tourist lady whose shorts, shall we say, didn't quite cover her buns. The entire tour party laughed and pointed at this “hang out” repeatedly.
The Enterprise had an early version of phased array radar that was somewhat troublesome. The Long Beach had a similar system. You will note that the nuclear “frigates” Bainbridge and Truxtun did not have such systems - the superstructures not large enough for the large “billboard” antenna arrays at the time, and I suspect the system was still buggy.The computer technology at the time wasn’t quite there yet. The phased array application on this scale requires a bit of signal processing computer horsepower. So these systems were no where near the capabilities of even the early versions of the SPY-1 found on the Ticonderoga class.
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