JANUARY 10, 2010

Several letters to the News Journal have called for acquiring a decommissioned aircraft carrier as a museum ship for Pensacola. This is a lesson in "be careful what you wish for."

 Coos Bay, Ore., is host to occasional visits by U.S. Navy ships. While I was semi-retired there, in the late 1980s, the Navy League chapter and local authorities asked me to look into bringing a museum ship there.

The cost to do the required studies, prepare a permanent berth and bring a ship down from Bremerton, Wash., just about equaled the city´s annual budget. Never mind regular maintenance thereafter, which had to be guaranteed to the Navy if we were to get a ship at all.

Acquiring a decommissioned Navy ship for public display is a little like getting married: you get a ship, and you maintain her in what the Navy considers appropriate condition! And that was before the current stress on environmental remediation both aboard the ship and in waters surrounding the berthing area.

In 1999, USS Forrestal Museum Inc. began a campaign to obtain Forrestal from the Navy for use as a museum at Baltimore, but the attempt failed. She still lies at Newport, scheduled for inactive storage at Philadelphia and available for state claim as an offshore artificial reef.

Early efforts to establish USS Saratoga as a museum in Jacksonville failed to raise even half the start-up costs. "Save Our Sara" fell short of the $3 million initial goal, and efforts were abandoned when costs increased from $4.5 million to $6.8 million.

And that was in 1999 dollars.

By 2007, a Rhode Island-centered USS Saratoga Museum Foundation Inc. collected a substantial sum in donations and possible federal funding. Extensive environmental and engineering studies needed to support the move have been underway in anticipation of future display at an Air, Land & Sea Heritage and Technology Park on the site of the former NAS Quonset Point. Today, the Saratoga Foundation continues to jump through hoops posed by interagency issues, such as the environmental status of the bay.

The USS Ranger Museum Foundation Inc. has raised substantial sums and is in the process of filing environmental, engineering, feasibility and maintenance statements with the Navy to move Ranger to Portland, Ore.

As for the USS John F. Kennedy: Though she had undergone periodic yard work, Kennedy did not undergo the Service Life Extension Program for carriers of her class and the extensive repairs and updates eventually needed were not considered cost-effective. The Navy proposed to decommission her in 2005.

However, Congress proposed to keep Kennedy in service in a Reserve Training/Active Deployable status to maintain 12 active aircraft carriers. There was considerable political agitation to do so from Florida (Kennedy was stationed in Jacksonville). But her flight deck had deteriorated to the point it was no longer certifiable for flight operations. Kennedy was decommissioned in 2007.

In 2009 the Navy placed Kennedy in donation hold status for use as a museum and memorial. An article in the Boston Herald on Nov. 26 mentioned the possibility of bringing Kennedy to the Boston area. A ship named Kennedy would likely draw big money in Massachusetts.

A carrier effort gone awry involved the light carrier USS Cabot, last example of her class. A replica of her island and flight deck are on display in the National Museum of Naval Aviation at Pensacola Naval Air Station.

The ship was lent to Spain in 1967, then struck from the U.S. Navy List in 1972 when the loan became a sale, and then given by Spain to a private group to render her a museum ship in the United States.

Though listed as a National Historic Landmark in 1990, an effort that ran until 1999 failed to collect enough money and support. She languished in New Orleans until auctioned in 1999 to pay debts the private group had run up; she was broken up for scrap.

Given the money issues attending the Port of Pensacola and the museum at the Community Maritime Park, local government should be commended, not derided, for "missing out" on bringing an aircraft carrier here for exhibit.

Owen Englander is a retired U. S. Navy captain and a resident of Pensacola.