Posted on 03/10/2012 3:53:50 PM PST by DemforBush
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) When the makers of "Top Gun" were filming on board the USS Enterprise, they donated a set of black fuzzy dice to liven up the ship's otherwise drab interior.
A quarter-century later, the dice will still be dangling inside the tower of "the Big E" as the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier sets sail on its final voyage Sunday...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Brother, thank you for your testimony. Amen.
I’m shocked obama hasn’t sold it to China. Or maybe even given it to them.
I served on the Enterprise 1983-1986. I was reenlisted by Vice President Bush on her. Lots of memories.
Both of the prettiest ships ever built.
Well, along with the Benjamin Stoddert with the fantail but 8ft above the waterline.
Carrier - [CV/CVA/CVS-21, LPH-4] ...
Essex Class carrier that was commissioned to late for service in WWII.
In 1948, she was the first carrier platform to launch a jet. Saw service in the Korean War.
The navy began experimenting with the concept of a carrier operating entirely with attack helicopters, and Boxer was used to test the concept.
Later became part of a new amphibious assault squadron with four Landing Ship Tank vessels equipped with helicopter platforms. The experimental concept would allow for rapid deployment of US Marine Corps personnel and helicopter squadrons. She was reclassified LPH-4, denoting a “Landing Platform Helicopter”.
I only asked because you posted the LHD, not CV-21
Amen to that.
Or the LPH?
Longer ago than I’ll admit, MY Navy named aircraft carriers after FAMOUS ships (ie. Boxer, Wasp, Ranger etc) or historic naval battles, such as MIDWAY. Many of the CVE’s (jeep carriers) were name to honor even land battles, such as St. Lo and others.
Thus our ships were born with a proud legacy.
It will not be the same Navy without an ENTERPRISE.
G-2 WEPS, 81-85
How's this?
50 knots easy.
She can move at freeway speeds and no other capital ship in the world can keep up with her.
Holy smokes!
From looking up her stats the flight deck is about the size of some mid-town Manhattan city blocks. Don't know how high above the water line the deck is but the image that comes to my mind (NYC escapee) is;
A whole friggin' block of NYC buildings passing me in the left lane of the NY Thruway!
And being swept away to hell and gone by the bow wave!
On 22 February 1982, Benjamin Stoddert departed Hawaii for her ninth western Pacific cruise. After a brief stop at Guam on 6 March, she proceeded on to the Philippines. While enroute to Subic Bay, the warship conducted both antisubmarine and antiair warfare exercises, an underway routine she would continue throughout this deployment. Following a week in Subic Bay, the guided-missile destroyer steamed to Korea and, between 28 and 30 March, participated in amphibious Exercise "Team Spirit 82." She then sailed between Hong Kong, Subic Bay, and Yokosuka before anchoring in Shimoda-ko, Japan, on 15 May. In the latter port, she took part in the Black Ship Festival, commemorating Commodore Matthew C. Perry's opening of Japan to foreign trade in 1854. Benjamin Stoddert returned to Subic Bay on the 24th.
Leaving the Philippines on 2 June, the guided-missile destroyer sailed to Sattahip, Thailand, anchoring there on the 6th. That same day, tension between the Soviet Union and the West increased after Israel invaded Lebanon. International friction notwithstanding, the warship joined the previously scheduled exercise "Cobra Gold 82" in the Gulf of Thailand on the 7th. Her participation included naval gunfire support for an amphibious landing exercise and ASW operations with three Royal Thai Navy warships. Still, heightened Cold War tension intruded when, just before midnight on 8 June, Aneroid a Soviet intelligence gathering trawler fired an illumination flare over Thai ship HTMS Khirirat.
Departing Pattaya, Thailand, on 19 June, Benjamin Stoddert, guided-missile cruiser Sterett (CG-31), and two other destroyers passed into the South China Sea on their way to Subic Bay. The next evening, Soviet aircraft presumably from bases in Vietnam began shadowing the American warships. At around 22:00, a Soviet aircraft dropped 16 flares over Turner Joy (DD-951). A few minutes later, Lynde McCormick (DDG-8) received .30-caliber machinegun fire from an unidentified ship in the vicinity. The warship responded in kind, deliberately aiming high; and the foreign ship ceased fire. Although tension remained high the rest of the night, no other incidents occurred; and the warships arrived at Subic Bay on 23 June. After that, however, Stoddert passed her remaining five weeks in the western Pacific without incident; and, following two "war-at-sea" exercises in the waters off Japan, she steamed for home on 6 August.
Mooring at Pearl Harbor on 12 August, the warship spent the rest of the year doing maintenance work on her boilers and standing several regular safety and readiness inspections.
This wikipedia article is not accurate. Two ships were hit, the the McCormick and the Turner Joy. Both took .50cal and .30 cal fire.
They were hit by Vietnamese "fishing trawler/patrol boats.
But then ONLY after we had cruised btween the mainland and some island about 30 miles off shore...no less than 20 times. Back and forth.
We finally pissed 'em off.
After they fired and we fired back, off to Sasebo! The Black Ship Festival is a truly unusual and rare experience.
There have been a bunch of ships named Enterprise.
I always thought it interesting that the series “Star Trek” used that name too.
My big brother flew A6 Intruders off her during his tours of Viet Nam.
Tarwara sailor speaks:)
That is it! Thanks for posting that.
That ship leaves a wake you can see the next morning.
W Div WEPS, 83-86. We must have met a time or two.
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