Musician's Vanguard | HMS Vanguard's Story

Peace Log #4: The Fall of Heroes

United States of America - June 30, 1960 - Lipsett Division of Luria Brothers

Even though after the war, within the Allied Navies there is sadness as not all things can be there forever. Meaning, same as old technology such as steam locomotives, are discarded, left to rot, and their last fate was being scrapped for salvageable parts and resources. 

Much like the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests, the ships are sent there to be tested when being attacked by a nuclear bomb. This is their way to "scrap" the ships without the  naval yards to do the crushing of metal. Other reasons was the arrival of new ships, new designs are made and then built to replace the once old ships of the 2nd World War.

However, something was now missing. There are no more cruisers, battlecruisers, and the mightiest ones before, the battleships.

With aircraft carriers being the new weapon in naval wars, many navies decided to build their own new designs of the aircraft carrier. Those of Great Britain, France, Russia, and the USA which had built many aircraft carriers which are the Essex-class.

Other ships aside from the aircraft carriers are destroyers, submarines, and missile guided cruisers. They're then followed by frigates, corvettes, and amphibious assault ships.

Many ships from the Inter-War Period and WW2 are sent to be scrapped.

However, such example of the preservation of the parts of USS Nevada by the Lisiaco family brought many other ship preservation groups to begin saving other warships to preserve them for the next generation as a museum ship.

Most groups saved their funds and papers to preserve the modern battleships such as the South Dakota-class, North Carolina-class, and the last class of battleships, which was the Iowa-class.

Other preservation groups then made a funding program to preserve the Cleveland-class light cruisers with only USS Little Rock the only perfect ship, this was also followed by the Des Moines-class heavy cruiser, USS Salem, the class was also the last heavy cruisers. Other ships were then soon taken to be preserve, similar to the preservation of steam locomotives for heritage railways.

The oldest battleship they preserved was the USS Texas, she was exchanging funds, papers, and preservation groups during the years.

However, there are some ships that are preserved by the US Navy and Government.

Two examples of those preserved ships, are the ships that remain underwater ever since they sank because of the Attack of Pearl Harbor. Mainly, USS Arizona and USS Utah.

USS Utah was once a battleship during the 1910s, she didn't fought in World War 1 so during her Inter-War years, she was converted into a training ship. She was then sunk by Japanese attacks on December 7th 1941. Because the navy cannot find any uses to her considering that she was old and no longer a warship at that time, she will be left there until a memorial was placed.

As for the USS Arizona, she was the most tragic one. During the War, she was left until her parts are salvaged. USS Arizona was the battleship that the USS Missouri was most fond off. So during the 1950s, the US Navy proposed to build a memorial on top of the remains of the battleship. Her shape can be still seen underwater, as well as her oil tanks began to leak out. With the require funds met their target goal, they began constructing the USS Arizona Memorial.

As for the aircraft carriers, 4 are preserved, the USS Intrepid(CV-11), USS Yorktown(CV-10), USS Hornet(CV-12), and USS Lexington(CV-16).

But they can never be the same as the most sadness time for most men and women in the navy are the scrapping of the Yorktown-class aircraft carriers.