Jack Lawler Jr. wants to park a 52-year-old aircraft carrier next to Fort McHenry in Baltimore City?s harbor.
The USS Forrestal, commissioned in 1955 and considered the first super carrier, could become a “floating museum” that depicts Cold War naval history. But for that to happen, Lawler needs state and federal help to keep the Navy from sinking the ship as planned.
“What it all boils down to is that the Forrestal has 50 years of history,” Lawler said. “We?ve been at this for eight years. The state and the city can?t turn its back on this opportunity.”
Former shipmates fight for Forrestal
Lawler, 71, of Glenwood, served on the Forrestal between 1955 and 1958, and has since become the vice president of the Forrestal Museum Inc., a nonprofit of former shipmates trying to save the ship from its watery grave.
The Navy decommissioned the ship in 1993, and for the next decade had it available for donation. Because the Navy would not approve a site, the nonprofit couldn?t raise the money to get the ship, Lawler said. The Navy then assigned the ship to become an artificial reef at an unspecified time.
“We did work closely with all organizations that were interested in the ship,” Navy spokeswoman Katie Dunnigan said.
Navy said Forrestal mustgo
Capt. David Tungett, of the Navy?s Inactive Ships Program, told the group in a October 2006 letter the ship must go by 2010, because the pier to which it is moored is falling apart.
Tungett also wrote that the proposed site would need costly dredging and pier construction and could become a blind spot for other ships in the Baltimore City harbor.
But Lawler said the site near the Naval reserve is an ideal spot and the Navy?s estimated $30 million for a pier could be slashed by using posts that are cheaper to install.
Group reaches out to politicos
Lawler has sought help from Democratic U.S. Sens. Benjamin Cardin and Barbara Mikulski, as well as U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-District 7, State Senate President Thomas Miller and Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon.
Vernon Simms, Cummings? chief of staff, said his office had just received the information and would release a position statement later this week. The other officials could not be reached for comment Friday.
Lawler has even sought the help of U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who nearly died on the Forrestal during the Vietnam War. A rocket accidentally fired by another jet struck McCain?s plane. McCain barely escaped from the cockpit before the plane exploded
However, it is unclear if the Navy will reverse its decision, given that it has sunk $4 million into prepping the ship?s demise.
Dunnigan would not say if the Navy would reconsider the Forrestal?s fate.
Ship is memorial to fallen soldiers
Lawler said the ship is steeped in the history. The museum?s Web site calls the Forrestal the prototype of the post-World War II aircraft carrier. The rocket fiasco, which occurred July 29, 1967, claimed the lives of 134 people, including three Marylanders. Lawler said the U.S. Naval Academy uses footage from thedisaster to train cadets on damage control.
“Those three Maryland men who lost their lives is reason enough to have this memorial,” Lawler said.
