THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 21, 1995 TAG: 9505210037
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MAYPORT NAVAL STATION, FLA. LENGTH: Medium: 97 lines
It once was the pride of the Navy, an 80,000-ton aircraft carrier that steamed to virtually every foreign flashpoint over 38 years - from the Cuban missile crisis to the Persian Gulf War.
Today the carrier Saratoga is a shell destined for the scrapyard.
The flight deck contains only the rusting remains of the Saratoga's mast and a 30-ton anchor. The four elevators that once lifted jets from the cavernous hangar bay to the flight deck are welded shut. The windows on the bridge are sealed with metal plates, covering the view captains had in guiding the ship during the Vietnam War, the pursuit of the Achille Lauro hijackers and the 1986 bombing of Libya.
``I'm going to be sorry to see her go,'' said Capt. William H. Kennedy, the ship's final commanding officer. ``She looks old and tired.''
The Saratoga, long enough to cover three football fields, was decommissioned in August. Local officials failed to raise enough money to turn the carrier into a floating military museum and tourist attraction.
Commissioned on April 14, 1956, the Saratoga was the second carrier built after World War II. More than 60,000 men served on board.
One of the vessel's early tests was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the Saratoga helped enforce a naval blockade of the island, as the United States and the Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear war.
The carrier's final deployment was in the Mediterranean, supporting the operations of NATO and the United Nations in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Now, stripped of electronics, weapons and even her mast, the rusting ship will be unceremoniously towed this week to a naval graveyard in Philadelphia - an eight-day voyage.
There are no historical markers on the carrier, no monuments to its 30 captains, few signs of the thousands of sailors whose lives shaped it.
But paintings of the ship's mascot, a fighting gamecock, still adorn the walls of the hangar bay. And in one berth, a love letter to John from Michelle rests on the bare springs of a bunk. A single brown boot sits on a table.
``A carrier is a lot like a city because of the young sailors that are aboard. Sailors bring life to that huge ship,'' Kennedy said. ``And now out there to see it empty, there is a deafening silence. It's kind of lonely. It's kind of eerie. It's kind of sad.''
The sailors of the Saratoga made history.
In 1985, seven F-14 Tomcats from the Saratoga pursued and caught the terrorists who hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and later escaped in an Egyptian jetliner. The Saratoga's pilots forced the jetliner to land in Italy, where the hijackers were captured.
Just a year later, a Libyan missile battery fired on U.S. jets. Fighters from the Saratoga destroyed the battery and a patrol boat.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Delwin Delgado, made his mark in the dark waters of the Mediterranean off Haifa, Israel.
A ferry returning with 80 crew members to the Saratoga early Dec. 22, 1990, capsized in heavy seas. The 26-year-old Delgado helped a disoriented shipmate to the surface and dived repeatedly to help the rest.
Delgado and 20 other sailors drowned in the worst disaster to befall the ship. Delgado's mother accepted his posthumous Navy medal for heroism.
On Jan. 17, 1991, Lt. Cmdr. Scott Speicher, a young father and Sunday school teacher, took off from the Saratoga's flight deck for a final time in his FA-18 Hornet. His plane was downed by an Iraqi missile on the first night of the Persian Gulf War.
Now only a few hints of that past glory remain.
In the darkened air operations center, with its eerie blue lights, written on Plexiglas sheets is a list of all the aircraft that flew off the carrier on June 23, 1994. They were the final flights from the Saratoga, one day before it pulled into port for the last time.
Air Wing 17, stationed at Oceana Naval Air Station and now assigned to the aircraft carrier Enterprise, spent their last deployment aboard the Saratoga.
A scrawled note on the board reads, ``We're finally here.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lt. John Wallach takes a last look at his former work area last
Tuesday. The ship is currently at the Mayport Naval Station in
Jacksonville, Fla.
The mast lies in pieces on the flight deck of the former USS
Saratoga, the second aircraft carrier to be built after WWII. The
ship will be towed to a naval graveyard in Philadelphia. Air Wing
17, now assigned to the carrier Eisenhower, spent its last
deployment on the Saratoga.
by CNB