NEWPORT, R.I. — The
decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Saratoga left its port in Rhode Island on
Thursday for its final journey to Texas, where it will be scrapped.
The ship departed Naval
Station Newport and made its way down Narragansett Bay to the Atlantic Ocean.
It is heading to the Esco Marine ship recycling plant in Brownsville, Texas.
The Saratoga was supposed to leave Wednesday, but the voyage was postponed because
of concern that storms were developing along the route.
Esco Marine is being
paid a penny by the Navy to dispose of the Saratoga. It plans to make money by
selling what it recovers from the ship.
“It’s a sad day in a way
to see a great lady finish her career by being towed off to be scrapped,” said
Bill Sheridan, who was involved in the effort to try to save the ship by
turning it into a museum.
Tugs arrived at the
station at about 6 a.m. Thursday and the lines that had held the carrier to the
pier for 16 years were cut. The carrier passed under Newport’s Claiborne Pell
Bridge and by Fort Adams at midmorning, where people had gathered to watch it
go. The trip is expected to take about 16 days.
More than 100 veterans
from all eras of the carrier’s life took part in a farewell ceremony at the
naval station earlier this month. They walked along the pier, taking pictures
and looking up at the Saratoga one last time.
The Saratoga — named for
the decisive battle of the American Revolution fought in upstate New York — was
commissioned in 1956 and completed 22 deployments before it was decommissioned
in 1994. It was off the coast of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, off of
Vietnam during the Vietnam War and in the Persian Gulf during the first Iraq
War. It arrived in Newport in 1998 and fell into disrepair.
The Navy took the
Saratoga off the donation list in 2010 after another carrier, the USS John F.
Kennedy, became available for a museum. There are plans for a memorial to the
Saratoga on board the future Kennedy museum.
The Saratoga, Sheridan
said, is “gone but not forgotten, and always remembered in our hearts.”
Source:
herald net. 21 August 2014
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20140821/NEWS02/140829762
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