Interesting. The Navy dumps a ship only 50 years old but yet the Air Force is still flying B-52’s that some grand son of the first pilot is flying it.
Back in the days before they started naming ships after John Murtha and Cesar Chavez.
Thank You for sharing that!
The USS Enterprise was too huge to dock in Boston’s Inner harbor, but 50 years ago she was anchored off shore out among the Harbor islands. My Dad, a Navy Vet of WW2 and Korea, put all of us kids in a boat and went out to “See The Enterprise”. We navigated up as close as was safe and were AWED by that magnificent ship. I will never forget the sight.
Dad passed away a year ago, and I wonderful memories of his love for the Navy and for America.
I’ve always loved that photo since I was a kid and saw it in an encyclopedia. I eventually became a submarine nuc, but seeing those three nuclear powered surface ships running together was inspiring.
Maybe go around the Cape for fun!
This is sad. The Big E has been a wonderful mistress of the 7 seas for about as long as I can remember. Hopefully, she will be retired to a graceful, calm port, much like Old Ironsides has been in Boston.
Thank you sweet lady for all the men you served and from all those who walked your decks.
In the meantime, where are Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhuru, Checkov and the rest of the crew going to live??
In the years to come, our Navy is going to see huge problems. In order to keep the ship numbers up to present levels, our Navy has decided to build tons of littoral combat ships. LCS’s are death traps. They might be good for patrolling the Great Lakes, but not for much else. Assuming they get the bugs worked out, which is iffy at best, those ships can’t go anywhere on their own, because they need other ships around to protect them. That whole class of ships is a bad joke, and I believe the Navy has ordered up to 80 of them. I’d rather have 10 destroyers than 80 LCS’s.
I have mostly sad memories of the Enterprise. My husband was stationed at Hickam AFB Hawaii which is adjacent to Pearl Harbor. We saw the Enterprise at dock after the explosion and fire in January 1969. Twenty seven sailors were killed and over 300 injured. The whole back end of the ship above the waterline was mangled.
34 knots??? Hehehe...
We tried and failed to hold a plane-guard station off the “Big E” back off San Diego when they were running flight ops... Back after one of their SLEP availabilities...Sometime back in 1986 IIRC...
That was one fast ship!!! Almost made a respectable rooster-tail!!! ;-)
All three of those ships are gone now...
How time flies...