A group of veterans who served on the nation?s first supercarrier are abandoning ship ? literally.
After a decade of fighting to bring the nation?s first supercarrier to Baltimore as a floating museum, the veterans who form the nonprofit USS Forrestal Museum Inc., said this week they are admitting defeat. Museum board members said the Navy?s persistent threats to sink the gargantuan ship as an artificial ship will soon become reality.
“We?re up against a brick wall we can?t beat,” said Jack Lawler, a board member. “I guess they found it was better to sink Forrestal than to save 50 years of history.”
After languishing at a Rhode Island dock, the Forrestal sat on a donation-approved list of retired ships for five years. A Navy official told The Examiner in October the military removed the ship from the list because no one submitted a complete application to acquire it.
The Navy donates ships to cities, states and nonprofits who submit applications and funding plans, but none were submitted when the ship ? which could sleep more than 5,000 sailors and features a 4-acre flight deck ? was on this list in 1999.
“Given that the ship had been decommissioned since 1993 and that the Navy can?t continue to retain the ship indefinitely in Newport, Rhode Island, we cannot support putting the ship back on donation hold,” said Katie Dunnigan, a spokeswoman for the Naval Sea Systems Command.
The Navy offered to donate removed components of the ship for public display, but Dunnigan said she did not know if the board will accept.
The Forrestal made history in 1967 when an onboard fire killed 140 sailors. U.S. Senator and 2000 presidential contender John McCain (R-Ariz.) survived. Over the past 10 years, board members pitched docks including Locust Point, Port Covington, near the Bay Bridge, Fort McHenry and, most recently, Baltimore County?s Sparrows Point peninsula, which won the support of activists lobbying against a planned liquid natural gas plant there.
They fought competitors who wanted to see the ship docked in Salem, Mass., and Tampa, Fla., and secured letters of support from Govs. William Schaefer, Parris Glendening and Robert Ehrlich.
Property owners agreed, donations came in, but the Navy resisted. Dunnigan said at least one presented technical and financial challenges.
But Lawler said he was just trying to keep the ship ? and memories ? afloat.
“I?m still getting calls all the time ? when is it coming in? When can I get aboard?” Lawler said. “Every guy who served on one of these ladies leaves something on board.”
