Preservation of historic ships

From the Washington Naval Treaty to the end of the Second World War.
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cascoskuro
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Preservation of historic ships

Post by cascoskuro »

Hi!

What´s the country more interested on preservation of historic ships?.
USA?, UK?, France?...I´m not sure, only one thing is true: not Spain!! :negative:

Example:
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cascoskuro
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Post by cascoskuro »

Sorry, HMS Victory, of course, today in Portsmouth.
Bgile
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Post by Bgile »

I don't know who does it more, but in the US we do it a lot. I think part of the reason is our ships tend to be named for cities and states, and when a ship is decommissioned there tend to be local organizations that want to buy it, especially if it had a significant role.

Having said that, I live in the state of Oregon. Organizations here were unable to save the battleship by that name. It would have been an extremely interesting ship as a display; it was one of the first US ships receiving that designation. :(
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cascoskuro
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Post by cascoskuro »

Hi Bgile!

USS Oregon, in times of Spanish-American War (we lost... :stubborn: ).

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And now, our Almirante Oquendo, sunk at battle of Santiago de Cuba, againts your Oregon and others.

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Bgile
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Post by Bgile »

Oh, thank you! It wasn't exactly a fair fight. Oregon made a high speed trip around the tip of S. America in order to participate in that battle. Not fast by today's standards, but back then she and her sisters may have been the fastest ships there.

She served for many years as the drilling location for the local naval reserve here in Portland. It would have been so easy to turn her into a museum. Sigh.

She was actually used during WWII as an ammo barge in the S. Pacific and survived the tow home only to be scrapped. :(
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Javier L.
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Post by Javier L. »

I think the preservation of historic ships has to do a lot with means and money. No matter how much a ship is loved by his actions if there is no money to maintain it as a museum it will be eventually scrapped. Money is sometimes raised by ship associations, donations, or support of governments. The US is a country with both the means and money (and people willing to preserve those ships) and therefore have many ships as museums, which is very good for us.
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Ulrich Rudofsky
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Post by Ulrich Rudofsky »

This is a partial list of the large units of the USN that are museum ships.
US Navy museum battleships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers are listed below. Links for these ships and maritime museums can be found at http://www.naut-res-guild.org/museum2.htm and http://www.battleship.org/

Some photo links: http://smmlonline.com/reference/usnships.html (Alabama, Olympia, New Jersey); http://rasputin.physics.uiuc.edu/~wiringa/ (Wisconsin, Texas, New Jersey)


USS ALABAMA BB 60 Alabama
USS MISSOURI BB 63 Hawaii
USS ARIZONA BB 39 (WRECK MEMORIAL) Hawaii
USS MASSACHUSETTS BB 59 Massachusetts
USS NEW JERSEY BB 62 New Jersey
USS NORTH CAROLINA BB 55 North Carolina
USS TEXAS BB 35 Texas
USS WISCONSIN BB 64 North Carolina
USS WASHINGTON BB 56 Washington State
USS IOWA BB 61 California

USS OLYMPIA C 6 Pennsylvania
USS SALEM CA 139 Massachusetts
USS MIDWAY CVB 41 California
USS HORNET CV 12 (FINANCIAL CRISIS!) California
USS INTREPID CV 11 New York
USS YORKTOWN CV 10 South Carolina
USS LEXINGTON CV 16 Texas
(USS JOHN F. KENNEDY CVA 67 PLANNED FOR BOSTON IN 2007?)




Most of these ships can be located on the satellite Google map: Example USS ALABAMA in Mobile Bay:

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Battleshi ... &t=k&hl=en

USS Wisconsin in Norfolk, VA:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=wisconsin ... &t=k&hl=en
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turlock
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Post by turlock »

Sorry Ulrich but Washington was sold for scrap May 24, 1961, the same day Alaska was, and 20 years to the day that Hood was sunk. The State of Washington did indeed want her, and yet, in this country the fate of BB's often depended on which coast they were mothballed on. That is what sealed Washington's fate. North Carolina was mothballed in Norfolk, an easy tow to Wilmington. Only New Jersey defied the odds successfully. The people of that state had been lobbying more than 30 years to get their namesake Dreadnought and make a model study of what a state's citizens can do when they won't accept no.
I've been through four of the BB's here, one while commissioned, but two of the jewels in the museum ship line up here are the Jeremiah O'Brien in California and the John W. Brown in Baltimore. Last of the Liberty ships and they both still steam. Took a cruise on the Brown a few years back and was on the O'Brien 20 years ago.
Since this is a German Navy oriented site I have to part with the comment that the loss of Goeben/Yavuz to the scrappers was a horrendous loss. Surely the two Nations could have worked things out to allow such a historically signifigant vessel to be saved.
turlock
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Post by turlock »

Sorry again.New Jersey was mothballed on the West coast and towed home. That is what I wanted to emphasize in her example.
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Ulrich Rudofsky
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Post by Ulrich Rudofsky »

Thanks for the correction about the USS Washington. It is sad to see ships go to the breaker, but museum ships require an enormous support. I imagine the USS Hornet is about to go, too. One old gem is here on the Hudson River in Albany, NY: the USS Slater DE 766. She has been painstakingly restored and is apparently the last remaining DE afloat.
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Sergio
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Post by Sergio »

Hello, in Spain the only ship preserved as a museum for visitors is the submarine Delfin S-61 in Torrevieja-Alicante.
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harris 1
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Post by harris 1 »

I think there are three WW1 German Dreadnoughts on the bottom of Scapa Flow, and they let people dive on them. I'm not sure though.
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Post by Sergio »

Hello, if they are in the bottom of Scapa Flow then they are wrecks not museums.
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