Bennington earned three battle stars for World War II service and five battle stars during the Vietnam conflict. An unrelated scrapping of a 1950s-vintage minesweeper resulted in a net loss to Seawitch, exacerbating the cash flow issue. On the 16th, TF 58 launched its air strikes on Japan proper. On 7 December 1994 the ex-USS Bennington left the United States under tow. As an example the above ex-USS General John Pope (AP-110) was a WWII troopship last used during the Vietnam War. (The WWII aircraft carrier USS Cabot (CVL-28) being scrapped via the basin method in 2002.). Vistula" in April 1942 as an US Navy tanker. (The WWII cruiser Kirov is less famous than the 1980s atomic-powered namesake. It was simply byproduct of a scrapped WWII warship: wood, canvas, glass, bakelite (an early plastic), rope, firebrick, life vests, rubber, mineral wool, tar, and so on. Endless lawsuits meant that they were not actually dismantled until 2009 – 2010. USS RANGER was last homeported in San Diego, Calif. After decommissioning the RANGER was … Grounded naval warplanes were also sold as scrap. USS Bennington (CV-20) was a WWII Essex class aircraft carrier later modernized during the Cold War. The contracts grew more intricate as decades passed after WWII. Lagging was put around steam lines, pipes, hot exhausts, and ducts. Instead of first picking through the condemned WWII warship for saleables, it was all cut up as fast as possible. EXCELLENT site you have here. Loma in San Diego as she steams into the Pacific Ocean in the mid-1970s. The contract mandated asbestos removal be done by a Maryland-licensed remediator (of which Seawitch was not) and a subcontractor was hired. Surplus T2s remained in civilian service for decades after WWII, and much like the Liberty and Victory ships, were a hungry consumer for saleables taken off sisters already broken up by scrappers. USS Hancock (CV 19) 15 Apr 1944 / 30 Jan 1976: Stricken from the Navy List 31 Jan 1976; Disposed of, sold by Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS) for scrapping 1 Sept 1976. By the 1990s, they were basically legal booklets. The price equates to $464,500 in 2020 dollars. Fascinating. Starting in the 1970s, the remaining ones in use were no longer profitable to run. Name: VISTULA. Zidell Explorations of Portland, OR was started several months after WWII ended. During the Cold War, the US Navy reined in asbestos by using filler to lower the percentage of actual asbestos in lagging and developing substitutes altogether. As the number of cheap WWII hulks still around declined, a reprieve came from scrapping supertankers damaged in the Iran-Iraq War but this was only temporary. During that time, she made five deployments to the Western Pacific. Retiring on the 26th, Bennington launched aircraft against airfields on Okinawa in the Ryukyu Islands on 1 March. Even before the war’s end they were throwaways, used only until they needed maintenance and then immediately discarded. On the subject of Victory Ships, U.S. company Cleveland Cliff bought a Victory Ship in the 1951. The Pentagon couldn’t care less what happened to the obsolete WWII ship. In 1984, the ROCN was looking to replace ROCS Chung Chen, the former USS White Marsh (LSD-8), a WWII Ashland class amphibious ship. It is also time-intensive and only suitable for shipbreakers with low labor cost. Other than being (by far) the cheapest method, beaching offers no other benefit. She was the first U.S. Navy ship named in honor of the town of Bennington, Vermont, site of the Battle of Bennington in the American Revolutionary War. This ship had a serious fire off Brazil in 1953 and was scrapped.) Future USS Saratoga; Gallery; Links; News & Events; Officers; Membership; Donate; Reunion; Scholarships; History; Mayport Mirror; Future Saratoga; Gallery; Links; News; Store; Cart; Wish List $ 0.00. Specific to items intended for further at-sea use, insurance companies started to frown on the practice as well. Above is just one page from the 1973 pro forma contract of the ex-USS Silverstein (DE-534). Dunnage was the last category. I’m looking for specifics about the materials used in the construction of Liberty ships; what alloys of steel were used, what were the additives in the paint both above and below the waterline. In 2010 a willing scrapper was finally found and this veteran of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam was “deadstick towed” from California to Texas via the Panama Canal. As years went on, spreads between cost and profit tightened at American shipbreaking yards. Acquisition’s allegation that the federal government had sold “a bag of worms” full of hidden profit-busters. At least bare minimal upkeep had to be done on it now (again, at taxpayer expense) to preclude it sinking pierside. The ex-USS Bennington job finished in 1997. These destroyers went obsolete even as WWII was ongoing. During a refeuling at sea operation USS "Bennington" gets a washing down as seamen come up out of the salty spume. " They were left/right “handed” to the port and starboard propeller shafts. WAA sold off gear of all sorts from all branches of the military, not just the US Navy. As they are also needed for cargo lines and navies to maintain active ships, they are often booked months in advance. (1968 Boston Metals ad for a pump taken off a WWII T2 tanker.). Then a tow had to be arranged, the ship had to be cut up, the metal sorted, and a steel consumer found to buy it. She made her home along the American East Coast for some time until 1889 when she was sent to Europe. But that city was redeveloping the waterfront for postwar use. Both were towed to Brownsville for scrapping in 2012. After fleeing the mainland for Taiwan, the ROCN became a virtual “American echo”, from top to bottom ex-US Navy WWII ships. Invariably some percentage of the ship is lost in the process. Scrapping began in early 1995. (USS Sabine (AO-25) fought in the Saipan, Eastern Solomons, and Leyte Gulf battles of WWII and afterwards participated in the Cuban Missile Crisis.). Decommissioned in 1992, it was scrapped in Virginia in 2003.) The aircraft carrier remained in the Far East until mid-October when she set course back to the United States. By the early 1980s the gig was largely up and the few Libertys, Victorys, and T2s still in commerce were sold as scrap. The C1-MAV-1 was a War Shipping Administration diesel-powered merchant of which 215 were built during WWII. The USA built 1,052 big LSTs during WWII. Shipbreakers scrapping WWII warships broke this down into categories. Naval Aeronautical Organization OPNAV NOTICE 05400 for Fiscal Year 1956 dated 1 August 1955, search and rescue services for downed aviators, "Gary May Sydney Australia May 1957 GQ - CREW STORIES - USS BENNINGTON", "1957 Visit to Sydney - Terry Yung - CREW STORIES - USS BENNINGTON", "UNITED STATES NAVY VIEW OF UNIVERSITY HOAX - CREW STORIES - USS BENNINGTON", "EUREKA FLOODS - Christmas 1964 - PHOTO - USS BENNINGTON", Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Newsreel footage of the 1954 fire aftermath, List of aircraft carriers of the United States Navy, Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1954, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=USS_Bennington_(CV-20)&oldid=1008647578, World War II aircraft carriers of the United States, Cold War aircraft carriers of the United States, Vietnam War aircraft carriers of the United States, Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 24 February 2021, at 10:11. Below is the 2011 contract for the ex-USS Bolster (ARS-38), a WWII salvage ship. (photo by Robert Hurst). Acquisition submitted a claim for $8,871,416 to the government on the grounds that DRMS had not been forthcoming on how much hazardous material was aboard the ex-USS Coral Sea with a caveat that this could be reduced to $3,726,416 if the “no export” clause was waived and permission granted to finish the job in Asia. On 8 September, the carrier embarked upon a voyage to a new home port and a new fleet. This industry was self-supporting. A memorial to the sailors who died in the explosion was erected in 2004 at Fort Adams State Park in Newport, Rhode Island.[1]. Commissioned as attack aircraft carrier CVA 61, the RANGER was redesignated as multi-purpose aircraft carrier CV 61 on June 30, 1975. The Vietnam War Era covered by … ( Log Out / A general description is followed by a warning that the ship has been stripped of equipment, a summary of the hulk’s condition and suitability for towing, the appraised value, indication that it was a 1-ship auction, and legal disclaimers. In October 1994, N.R. USS Coral Sea (CV-43) was the third Midway class aircraft carrier. Auctions could be reserved, meaning that if a confidential minimum was not achieved the government voided all bids, or unreserved meaning the highest bid won no matter what. Along the way, she stopped at Saipan, where she disembarked her air group, and at Pearl Harbor before entering San Francisco Bay on 7 November. USS William Jones (DD-308) Steaming out of San Diego harbor, California, during the 1920s. It is electrically non-conductive. Stricken from the Navy list on September 20, 1989, the carrier was sold for scrapping on January 12, 1994. It bought the 100 ships, 15 of which were crewed by Greek merchant marine crews and flying the Greek flag from 1944 and sold them the same day to Greek shipowners. In Indonesia this is referred to as “magnetik memancing” (magnet fishing). During the next 22 years she split time in the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets. On 7 April, Bennington aircraft helped stifle the last major action of the Imperial Japanese Navy. (ex-USS Bennington at Alang.) If not, the title was transferred to the Maritime Administration for Category X (minimal upkeep) layup and eventual scrap sale. (The nameless repair barge YR-29 entered service two weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941. Copper was the most valuable metal of all. OpenSubtitles2018.v3. Bennington aviators went after targets both at Tokyo and at Yokosuka, site of the large Japanese naval base. Barred from sending the WWII submarine tender abroad, MARAD paid an American company $734,230 to dismantle it. Sheet asbestos could be laid anywhere fireproofing was required. The carrier's service during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis earned her the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal. It decommissioned on 30 April 1990. Shipbreakers assume any pre-1979 US Navy warship has asbestos unless known otherwise. The American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) is a private non-profit group which publishes industry standards that are more or less accepted as official in the USA. It was put on boiler components, and lined the inside of WWII submarine pressure hulls. The first four hulks, two of them WWII oilers, arrived in late 2003. TF 58 headed back to Ulithi on the 3rd and reentered that anchorage the following day for eight days of rest and relaxation. Bennington arrived in Long Beach on 9 November and, on the 14th, entered the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for a five-month yard overhaul. USS Bennington was a member of the Yorktown class of steel-hulled, twin-screw gunboats in the United States Navy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.