Aircraft Carrier In San Francisco - The unusual plea from Capt. Brett Crozier, a Santa Rosa native, came in a letter obtained exclusively by The Chronicle and confirmed by a senior officer on board the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which has been docked in Guam following a COVID-19 outbreak among the crew of more than 4,000 less than a week ago.
USS Wright (CVL-49) was the second in the Saipan class, weighing 14,500 tons, 684 feet long, and built for about 50 aircraft. Commissioned in February 1947, she was converted to a command ship in 1963 but retained her original name. She was decommissioned in 1970 and sold for scrap in 1980.
Aircraft Carrier In San Francisco
USS Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) was commissioned in November 1944, the Essex-class Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) weighed 27,100 tons and measured 872 feet. She joined the war in time to participate in attacks on the Japanese home islands, and afterward transported troops home from the Pacific theater. She was briefly deactivated after World War II, but called back to duty to participate in the Korean War, and fought again in Vietnam. Decommissioned in 1971, she was mothballed for 20 years before being sold and scrapped by Southwest Marine Recycling.
Bill started working at the Mercury News in 1980, when nothing in news libraries was digital. Research was done using paper clippings, and cameras shot film. He moved to the Chronicle in 1985, just as the library was beginning their digital text archive.
He has won numerous awards and covered everything from fashion to the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killings to two Olympic Games to his own vasectomy - which he discussed on NPR's "Talk of the Nation" after being told he couldn't say the word "balls" on the air. He regularly appears on Bay Area radio and TV talking politics and is available to entertain at bar mitzvahs and First Communions. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a proud native of Pittsburgh. Go Steelers!
Fisherman Juanito Pizarro offered an eyewitness description of the Core’s wild ride: “I saw her loom out of the fog. She just missed the breakwater. ... It kept heading for Needles ledge. I heard a big, loud scraping that kept getting louder and louder until she came to a stop.”
USS Bataan (CVL-29) was commissioned in November 1943, weighing 11,120 tons and 622 feet long. She fought in the Pacific campaign of World War II, then saw action again in Korea in 1952. Decommissioned in 1954, she was sold for scrap seven years later to the Nicolai Joffe Corp. in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Enterprise was the seventh ship to bear that name, but the first carrier. Commissioned in 1938, she bore the same dimensions and aircraft capacity as the Yorktown. In 1941, her scout planes arrived at Pearl Harbor to discover the bombing in progress. Three days later her aircraft sunk a Japanese submarine. She fought in the battles of Midway and Guadalcanal, surviving both, though emerging from the latter heavily damaged. After the war she became redundant. At first slated to become a permanent memorial, those plans were shelved in 1949 for lack of funding. Instead she was sold to the Lipsett Corp. for scrap metal; her teardown was completed in 1960.
USS Monterey (CVL-26) was commissioned in 1943, weighing 11,000 tons and measuring 622 feet. She participated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea before the end of the war. During the Korean War she spent four years as a training ship before decommissioning in 1956. She was sold for scrap in 1971.
Mark Cancian, a Marine colonel who served for 37 years before retiring, said that “the Navy has got to figure out how to do this right or else they can’t deploy the rest of the fleet.
“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do,” Crozier wrote. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”
USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) commissioned in 1943. Designed to carry 24 fighters and nine torpedo planes, she was 11,000 tons and 622 feet long. She supported landings on Iwo Jima and attacks on the Japanese home islands before the end of the war. In 1953, she was loaned to the French navy under the name Bois Belleau, serving in the Algerian war before returning to the U.S. Navy in 1960. She was then sold to Boston Metals Co. for scrapping seven weeks later.
Commissioned in 1943, the Hornet was named in the earlier Hornet‘s honor when the latter was sunk by the Japanese. Like her predecessors in the Essex line of carriers. She saw action in World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. Hornet was the ship that recovered the Apollo 11 astronauts following the U.S. moon landing. The ship was mothballed in 1970. CV-12 was placed on the National Historic Landmark registry in 1991 and donated as a museum to the Aircraft Carrier Hornet Foundation in 1998. Several television episodes and films have since been shot on board, and she has received widespread media attention for alleged hauntings aboard.
USS Wasp (CV-18) was commissioned in November 1943, weighing 27,100 tons and measuring 872 feet. Like most of the Essex class, she was designed to carry 90 to 100 aircraft. Before the end of the war, Wasp participated in Pacific island assaults and the attack on Okinawa. Wasp was decommissioned in 1972 and sold to the Union Minerals and Alloys Corp. in 1973 for scrap metal.
For decades, the Navy refused to divulge the location of the wreck. In 1990, while mapping the seafloor, the U.S. Geological Survey captured a sonar image believed to be the Independence. In 2009, its location was confirmed.
The eponymous lead of the 24-ship Essex carrier class, was commissioned in 1942, weighing in at 27,100 tons and measuring 872 feet. Made to hold between 90 and 100 aircraft and in 1945 launched attacks on Tokyo in anticipation of a major landing on the home islands, which never occurred. After the war she was renovated and recommissioned in 1951, then transformed into a submarine warfare support carrier in 1960. In 1975, Essex was sold for scrap.
Yorktown was launched in 1936 with a fighting weight of 19,800 tons and length of 809 feet. Built to hold 90 aircraft. In January 1942, she fought in the Marshall-Gilberts raids, which were the first American offensive of World War II, but in June that year she was done in by Japanese torpedoes at the Battle of Midway, with a loss of 141 sailors.
USS Shangri-La (CV-38) one of the last Essex carriers commissioned in time to fight in World War II, having been commissioned in September 1944. She weighed 27,100 tons, was 888 feet long and held 90 to 100 aircraft. After the surrender of the Japanese, the next time Shangri-La saw action was in Vietnam in 1970. Decommissioned in 1971 and kept in reserve for 11 years, the U.S. Maritime Administration plundered her for spare parts to use on the training carrier Lexington before she was sold for scrap and demolished at a yard in Taiwan.
So far, none of the infected sailors has shown serious symptoms, but the number of those who have tested positive has jumped exponentially since the Navy reported infections in three crew members on March 24, the first time COVID-19 infections had been detected on a naval vessel at sea.
In the four-page letter to senior military officials, Crozier said only a small contingent of infected sailors have been off-boarded. Most of the crew remain aboard the ship, where following official guidelines for 14-day quarantines and social distancing is impossible.
USS Antietam (CV-36) was commissioned in January 1945, weighing 27,100 tons and 888 feet long. As an Essex-class carrier, she was built to carry 90 to 100 planes. In 1951 and 1952 she launched sorties over Korea. Decommissioned in 1963, she was sold to Union Minerals and Alloys Corp. for scrapping in 1974.
The NOAA survey is part of a two-year mission to locate, map and study historic shipwrecks in and around the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. The carrier is the deepest known shipwreck in the sanctuary and one of an estimated 300 wrecks off San Francisco.
Sgt. Carl Godsey was sitting at his desk at his Fort Baker waterfront office when he heard an alarming noise. “It was a churning sound,” he was quoted as saying. “I knew it was a ship’s propeller — very big and very close.” He ran from the office and saw the ship heading directly for Point Cavallo, a rocky promontory. “Just as a collision seemed inevitable, the ship veered and changed course,” he said.
The barrels aboard the Independence were filled with concrete and sealed in the engine and boiler rooms, surrounded by thick steel walls, Delgado told the San Jose Mercury News. He said he doubted they posed any environmental or health risk.
The captain compared the situation to the Diamond Princess cruise ship, citing a study that focused on what could have happened to that cruise ship had no isolation been done. A total of 712 passengers eventually tested positive for COVID-19 from that cruise departing from Japan; however, the study found if there had been no early isolation close to 80% of passengers and crew would have been infected. And had the cruise line immediately evacuated the ship after the first positive tests, the study found only 76 people would have tested positive.
USS Boxer (CV-21) was another Essex-class carrier. Commissioned in 1944, she weighed 27,100 tons and measured 888 feet, and was able to carry up to 110 planes. In 1950 she rushed supplies to U.S. bases in Japan at the outbreak of the Korean war. In 1969 she was decommissioned, and then sold for scrap in 1971 and torn down at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The ship was another of the lucky few early aircraft carriers to survive World War II. Launched in 1933, she was the first carrier built from the keel up instead of converted from another type of hull. She weighed 14,500 tons and was 769 feet long, and could carry up to 86 P-40 planes. In 1942, she helped launch the Allies’ North Africa campaign from the coast of Morocco, and later attacked German shipping vessels near Norway. For her efforts, she was sold to Sun Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. for scrap in January 1947.
Bill Van Niekerken is the Library Director of the San Francisco Chronicle. He does research for reporters and editors and manages the photos, negatives and text archives. He has a weekly column "From the Archive", that focuses on photo coverage of historic events. For this column Bill scans and publishes 20-30 images from photos and negatives that haven't been seen in many years.
Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Mike Gilday responded to the increasing numbers late last week by saying the Navy was taking “this threat very seriously” and working to isolate positive cases to halt the spread. He promised to increase the rate of testing and to isolate infected sailors. He stressed that the top two priorities were caring for their sailors and maintaining “mission readiness.”
The ship was commissioned in 1943, was named for the ship lost in the Battle of Coral Sea while the former was under construction. She was built to weigh 27,100 tons and was 872 feet long, carrying up to 110 aircraft. CV-16 fought off the Philippines in World War II, then was decommissioned in 1947, but resurrected as an attack carrier in 1955. From 1969 to 1991 she served as a training ship. In 1992, after decommissioning, the Lexington was donated to become USS Lexington Museum on the Bay off Corpus Christi, Texas.
USS Randolph (CV-15) Commissioned in October 1944, Randolph (CV-15) weighed 27,100 tons, was 888 feet long and held 90 to 100 planes. She participated in attacks on the Japanese home islands late in the Second World War, then ferried troops home from Europe in Operation Magic Carpet. She was decommissioned after a relatively uneventful postwar life in 1969. In 1975, Randolph was sold to Union Minerals and Alloys for $1.5 million and torn down for scrap.
The life of Yorktown-class carrier Hornet (CV-8) was a brief one. Commissioned just two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, her first major mission was the carrier base for the Doolittle Raidthe Battle of Midway in June 1942. That October, she was fatally wounded at the Battle of Santa Cruz and sank off the Santa Cruz Islands. Like the other Yorktown carriers, she weighed 19,800 tons, measured 809 feet and carried up to 90 aircraft.
John F. Kennedy was commissioned in 1968. It’s the last conventionally powered carrier the U.S. Navy builds ahead of the Nimitz-class of nuclear carriers. The ship spent most of the 1970s in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and responded to the Marine Barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. The ship also fought during Operation Desert Storm. The ship was decommissioned in 2007. The ship is currently part of the Philadelphia reserve fleet.
The captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier with more than 100 sailors infected with the coronavirus pleaded Monday with U.S. Navy officials for resources to allow isolation of his entire crew and avoid possible deaths in a situation he described as quickly deteriorating.
The first incident involved the converted carrier Core, which was on its way out to sea for tests after repairs in Richmond. The front page of The Chronicle on Jan. 4, 1963, announced: “Carrier Misses Ocean.” In heavy fog the ship had run aground about 60 feet off the Marin County shore.
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