THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 10, 1994 TAG: 9407110003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Long : 140 lines
It's the third-largest fleet in the world and still growing.
Not since the end of the Vietnam War have Navy workers seen such a buildup of warships.
Now at about 170 vessels, including six aircraft carriers, four battleships, 52 destroyers and cruisers, and hosts of auxiliaries, the fleet ranks behind that of the active-duty U.S. Navy. It might eventually outnumber the ships of the former Soviet Union and become the world's second-largest fleet.
But, while it is strong in numbers, guns and tonnage, it lacks the muscle that lets it fight.
This fleet is sailorless.
It is the Navy's Inactive Fleet, moored at four primary sites across the country: Portsmouth, Philadelphia, Bremerton, Wash., and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Called the ``ghost fleet'' by some, the ``mothball fleet'' by others, these cocooned giants of past Defense Department plans are at rest, awaiting the scrap heap, a new life in a foreign country or a chance to sail again with the active forces.
With the rapid reduction of naval forces - from 550 ships in the late 1980s to 400 today and an estimated 330 by the turn of the century - the Navy has all but run out of room at its current inactive-ship locations.
``We are lucky here because the Maritime Administration, which runs the James River Reserve Fleet (of merchant ships), handles our overflow,'' said Lewis Jarvis, deputy director of the Navy Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility in Portsmouth.
The Portsmouth facility, which shares pier space with Norfolk Naval Shipyard, is headquarters for all of the Navy's inactive ships.
About 30 ships are at each site, with 50 more anchored in the James River, off Fort Eustis. Most in the later category are headed to the scrap pile, according to Jarvis.
There have been busier times, particularly after World War II, when more than 1,000 retired ships were anchored in the James River, said Fred Hood, director of the inactive-ship facility.
``But from about 1982 on, it is unprecedented what we have done, especially in the last two years,'' he said.
The Navy was decommissioning a ship nearly every week last year in an effort to stay within its shrinking budget, both Hood and Jarvis said.
It retired its World War II-era Ohio-class battleships once again, scrapped the carrier Coral Sea and took out a whole line of old Knox-class frigates.
Along the Portsmouth waterfront, what once represented billions of dollars worth of Navy technology now float at ease. Caretakers check for leaks and rust.
What was once a proud squadron of six fast Pegasus-class hydrofoil patrol boats is now tucked beneath the bows of an equally once proud class of tank-landing ships - the Newport class, with its unique ``bow horns'' that made front-end amphibious landings possible.
Those ships are being retained for the future, along with the nearly 50-year-old fleet tugs Papago and Paiute and some large supply ships.
But headed for the scrap iron works are the dock-landing ship Fort Snelling, decommissioned 10 years ago, and four Korean War-era ocean minesweepers.
Perhaps the oldest on the Portsmouth side of the Elizabeth River - the 52-year-old submarine tender Howard W. Gilmore - has been serving the fleet even as it rusts. It has been used as a parts ship for the past 15 years. The Fulton-class tender has been stripped of its useful gear to feed its sister ships.
But it too is to become razor blades, according to Hood.
``We're going through the final stages of transferring it to us so we can dispose of it,'' he said. ``It's been around for a long time.''
The caretakers are anxious for the scrap-iron crews to show up and tow away the rusting hulks. They need the room for an estimated 25 additional ship retirements this fiscal year, beginning in October.
``Someone suggested putting silicone on the sides so they slip in easier,'' quipped one supervisor surveying the dwindling space in Portsmouth. ``Then we could just walk from deck to deck.''
There's not a day that goes by, Jarvis said, that he doesn't receive a call from some civic group wanting to buy an old ship.
``They are looking for anything. It doesn't matter what kind. They think it is a nifty idea to have as a tourist attraction.''
Such callers are sent on to the proper channels, where they get involved in a long administrative process, Jarvis said.
Some have won. The latest acquisition is to go to New York City, where a group plans to use the former amphibious assault ship Guadalcanal, formerly based in Norfolk, as a municipal helicopter port and museum.
Sixty-two Navy and Coast Guard ships are preserved as memorials and museums across the country. They range from the sailing ship Constellation, built in 1853, which rests in downtown Baltimore, to the first nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus, on display at the submarine base in New London, Conn.
For those Navy ships not ordered scrapped or retained for the future, there might yet be life for them in a foreign country.
The Navy and Coast Guard did that with 41 of its ships between 1987 and 1991. Destroyers went to Greece, frigates to Pakistan and Brazil and former Coast Guard cutters found their way throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
Photo
LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
The Navy has 30 inactive ships stored at a facility in Portsmouth.
As ships are sent to the scrap heap, more continue to come in: 25
more ship retirements are expected to come this fiscal year, which
begins in October. Some, however, are saved for possible future use
or are sent to foreign countries. Civic groups also make offers for
the inactive ships, although few survive the long process required
to buy one.
Graphic
THE MOTHBALL FLEET
Listed as Navy ships in the ``mothball fleet'' and where they are
anchored.
Bremerton, Pearl
Ship type Portsmouth(1) Philadelphia Wash. Harbor
Carriers 0 2 4 0
Battleships 0 2 2 0
Destroyers and
cruisers 3 22 13 15
Amphibious ships 7 1 0 10
Auxiliary ships 0 2 2 0
Misc. ships (2) 20 0 10 5
TOTAL 30 29 31 30
1 - Figure does not count about 50 ships in James River fleet.
2 - Minesweepers, hydro-foils, submarines, rescue ships.
by CNB