According to a story in the Houston Chronicle, the State of Texas and others are vying to get CV-34 USS Oriskany. Great, right?

Wrong.

The Oriskany is no longer a fighting flat-top in America's navy, and she's not being considered for a museum. (Would that the Texans could have preserved her in the mode of the Texas...) Indeed, her fate is now to be converted into an artificial reef, as the U.S. Maritime Administration will do with her what neither the North Koreans nor the North Vietnamese could do to her during the Cold War, namely sink the thing.

Part of me knows that we can't preserve every warship that the Navy's ever owned, but another part of me is always saddened when I hear of yet another warship going to her fate. Pictures of the scrapping of HMS Warspite produce a catch in the throat and a twinge of regret. Similarly, seeing for example South Dakota with her superstructure erased and her main battery carved up is an unwelcome image. (That one's in a book, but here is a shot of the SoDak on her way to her end.)

This even extends to vessels in the modern era: Having grown up with pictures of the freakishly beautiful and cutting edge Long Beach, I was saddened to hear that she'd been reduced to wreckage at Puget Sound. I was also incensed that Senator John Warner hadn't been able to preserve USS Virginia, which is also "featured" on the Don Shelton Puget Sound Naval Shipyard page. This is less logical than conventional-fired ships; I'm not sure you can actually keep an atomic-powered vessel around, although happily Nautilus is proving me wrong.

Anyways, back to the Oriskany. The first time I ever heard of her was in Top Gun, when CDR Mike 'Viper' Metcalfe mentioned flying with Duke Mitchell off of the ship in Southeast Asia. I don't know much else about her, but she served us well, and I wish that she could be preserved for the foreseeable future as a memorial to the Cold War. Alas, Oriskany.

Two useful links with regards to the vessel are:
The Navy's Naval Historical Center
Oriskany Reunion Association Website

Tip of the Wisconsin hat to Jed at Boots and Sabers for the link.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 11:57 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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