USS Oriskany's Final Sortie

Ad Astra

Ad Astra

Joined
Jul 30, 2004
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Once a guardian of America's might, an obsolescent US aircraft carrier, the USS Oriskany, was sunk today in the Gulf of Mexico to become the nation's largest artificial reef.

May she rest in peace.

A friend and I shot these pix Monday at her sailing and today, at her sinking.

Oriskany passes Pensacola's Fort Pickens on her last sortie.

0m8qn.jpg


500 pounds of plastic explosive goes off in her piping and valves.

o30dl.jpg


Big O starts to slip away by the stern.

o28qx.jpg


Her final end.

o17lm.jpg


What do these pictures say to you?


Thanks for looking, Mike
 
Make me sad. My old ship the USS Gallant MSO489 (minsweeper) was the ship Elvis made part of a movie on (Easy Come Easy Go). She was sold to Taiwan. What a end for a old warhorse. :(. But I guess a better end than being cut up for scrap.

James
 
Oriskany starred in the immortal war film, "The Bridges at Toko-Ri."

Also... in another movie I can't remember, but those F9F Panther jets that Brubaker & co. flew.. such a beautiful aircraft.

Most of the vets that came were sad, but felt "Better a living reef than broken up for razor blades." That kind of sentiment, and I think they're right.


Mike
 
Ad Astra said:
Oriskany starred in the immortal war film, "The Bridges at Toko-Ri."

Also... in another movie I can't remember, but those F9F Panther jets that Brubaker & co. flew.. such a beautiful aircraft.

Most of the vets that came were sad, but felt "Better a living reef than broken up for razor blades." That kind of sentiment, and I think they're right.


Mike
Click to expand...

One of my favorite movies! About the only film I ever saw where I could stand Mickey Rooney (his character was named Forney I think, and the role was made for him.) The movie (1954) stuck to Michener's 1953 book very well. I also liked the work of Fredric March who played the Captain of the Oriskany. March also did a great job in "The Best Years Of Our Lives" 8 years previously.

Thanks for the great pics Mike.

Norm

BTW, load this link and scroll to the bottom for some beautiful pics of the Panther: http://www.aero-web.org/specs/grumman/f9f-2.htm
 
Beautiful pictures!

Tears at me, man. So proud, so strong, so important to so many.


Thank you.
 
As a former wreck diver and instructor, it looks like a terrific dive site to me.

The bad news is the ship was sunk in over 200' of water putting it beyond the range of sport divers even though it is tall.

So many could have enjoyed it if it had been sunk a bit shallower.
 
It's true. 65 feet down to the top of the island, 130 to the flight deck, about the limit of non-mix diving. They think we'll see a lot of dive accidents as it is just a little too deep for amateurs.

Fishing should thrive around it.... we're waiting to see the attitude she took going down: was supposed to sink on an even keel. Hopefully she's straight up and down but it rolled a little going under. Find out tomorrow. at 900 feet long, in 200 ft of water, you can see the stern hit bottom with the bow still out of the water.

Also went in 37 minutes instead of the 1.5-9 hrs projected. 4 movie cameras we're running onboard as it went for Discovery Channel, like to see that.

RIP, Oriskany. You did your job well.

More at Navy News Stand:
http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=23692
 
Ad Astra said:
What do these pictures say to you?
Click to expand...

They speak of the natural order of things to me. Old warship, new life...there's a lesson here.

Great pics, Mike. Thanks for posting them.
 
It made Canada news tonight!

They sank a UK Frigate near where I lived as an artificial reef and it was very successful. HMS Scylla was sank by exploding below the waterline and went down dead level. Although it is sad to see a floating war machine sink, it is a new life under the sea. HMS Scylla is visited by divers and is a great boost for the Cornwall, England economy. At least it is still a ship and not just scrap metal.

These pictures of the sinking were taken by a friend.

Dive Scylla - Artificial Reef - HMS Scylla
... Former Leander Class Frigate HMS Scylla was sunk in 20m of water to form an artificial reef, just ... The former navy frigate, HMS Scylla, started her new role in life ...
http://www.secta.org.uk/Dive_Scylla.htm - 21 KB

Dive details http://www.divernet.com/wrecks/wtour640604.shtml

The whole operation was under the auspices of the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth. There is an underwater webcam to the NMA too!
http://www.national-aquarium.co.uk/scylla/story.asp

All to show you that your USS Oriskany is starting a new life, not ending one in finality.
 
Very somber affair-my father just happened to be visiting when I saw this post. He was a pilot and flew over 200 hundred missions of that flight deck in Vietnam. He also survivied the fire that killed 44 of his fellow pilots in 1966. He looked at the pictures quietly and said that a burial at sea was far more fitting than being turned into razer blades.
 
I agree that its sad. I think the airplane graveyards are much sadder though. Just stiiing there unused. Line on line. Really always gets to me for some reason. These shots were awesome. I saw it on CNN last night while scrolling channels. The house got quiet. I'm glad we didn't sell it. I don't like that idea.
 
Great pics, thanks for posting them.

I boarded her after the 1966 fire when she came into Subic Bay, Philippines. My cousin was a grunt Marine stationed on her. I weaseled my way onboard and found him asleep in his rack. I hollared at him. He jumped up and braced to attention. Then he recognized me and hugged me (we are both well over 6 ft tall) and started bouncing me off the bulkhead. I told him to stop or I'd clock him a good one upside his ears. He was singed around his eyebrows and hair from going into the officers' quarters and pulling out folks. It was a sad occasion. I was able to get him off the ship to the O club where the first thing we did was call his folks to tell them he was alive and still functioning properly. They we had dinner and San Miguels. He had to be back by midnight as there were many folks coming and going.

I'm looking forward to hearing about the dive site.

http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/histories/cv34-oriskany/cv34-oriskany.html

http://www.visitpensacola.com/static/index.cfm?contentID=125
 
aproy1101 said:
I'm glad we didn't sell it. I don't like that idea.
Click to expand...

Me, too, Andy.

A ship really is more than just steel. Wasn't the ship really just a focal point for lives and events? All the lives that came together because of her, the reason she was built at such great expense: the defense of this nation. People flew off that flight deck and didn't return. McCain was one.

HI khuks are just reincarnated steel truck springs on a second, more appreciated life, right?

To go from a warship, laden with death-dealing devices to being a serene home for sealife is a kind of karmic redemption, I would like to think.


Mike
 
Always sad to see a ship die but this will have good use. The fire aboard her reminds me that as a kid I went aboard the Benjamin Franklin which was almost lost from battle and fire damage in WWII. But they were determined to save her and brought her all the way back to Brooklyn her home port .That had great effect on me as a kid and now too....Now when I see one of my favorite movies , Bridges at Toko Ri I'll remember the Oriskany. She was named after the battle fought in Oriskany NY in the American Revolution.
 
I'm a bit saddened to see an old war horse go too. I remember seeing news footage of them doing similar stuff with "obsolete" tanks and stuff. They'd just push 'em off the edge of a ship into the ocean to make a reef. I kept thinking, "Man! If they were just gonna drop 'em into the ocean, why couldn't they just give one to me?!" I'd love to have somebody give me a WWII tank...

There's another part of me that sees this as a shame and waste. I mean, we have a huge thread going on here about Zombie attacks, and folks are dreaming up the proper weapons for hand to hand combat. What if we ever got involved in a long, drawn out world war again? What if it was something that drained us so badly that by the end we couldn't keep up making new stuff, as happened to so many countries in great wars of the past? I'd think in the final last ditch effort, even an "obsolete" war ship 900 feet long would be more useful than asking civilians to volunteer their fishing boats. I'd think an "obsolete" WWII era tank would be more decisive than patriots trying to defend the land in pickup trucks with hunting rifles and Khuks. I'd wish we still had that WWII machine gun that had been scrapped, instead of issuing a rifle to every other man and telling the others to pick up one from the dead- like happened in Russia in WWII and here in our own civil war. Anybody get what I'm sayin'?
 
the possum said:
I'm a bit saddened to see an old war horse go too. I remember seeing news footage of them doing similar stuff with "obsolete" tanks and stuff. They'd just push 'em off the edge of a ship into the ocean to make a reef. I kept thinking, "Man! If they were just gonna drop 'em into the ocean, why couldn't they just give one to me?!" I'd love to have somebody give me a WWII tank...

There's another part of me that sees this as a shame and waste. I mean, we have a huge thread going on here about Zombie attacks, and folks are dreaming up the proper weapons for hand to hand combat. What if we ever got involved in a long, drawn out world war again? What if it was something that drained us so badly that by the end we couldn't keep up making new stuff, as happened to so many countries in great wars of the past? I'd think in the final last ditch effort, even an "obsolete" war ship 900 feet long would be more useful than asking civilians to volunteer their fishing boats. I'd think an "obsolete" WWII era tank would be more decisive than patriots trying to defend the land in pickup trucks with hunting rifles and Khuks. I'd wish we still had that WWII machine gun that had been scrapped, instead of issuing a rifle to every other man and telling the others to pick up one from the dead- like happened in Russia in WWII and here in our own civil war. Anybody get what I'm sayin'?
Click to expand...

That's very true, but you know what they say about a boat being a hole in the water in which you throw money? Imagine the boat is 900 feet long and 55 years old. This aging ship must have cost a fortune to maintain annually. There are far more modern ships that do the job much better and more cost efficiently. This is a fitting end for a grand old lady.

Norm
 
Ad Astra said:
It's true. 65 feet down to the top of the island, 130 to the flight deck, about the limit of non-mix diving. They think we'll see a lot of dive accidents as it is just a little too deep for amateurs.

Fishing should thrive around it.... we're waiting to see the attitude she took going down: was supposed to sink on an even keel. Hopefully she's straight up and down but it rolled a little going under. Find out tomorrow. at 900 feet long, in 200 ft of water, you can see the stern hit bottom with the bow still out of the water.

Also went in 37 minutes instead of the 1.5-9 hrs projected. 4 movie cameras we're running onboard as it went for Discovery Channel, like to see that.

RIP, Oriskany. You did your job well.

More at Navy News Stand:
http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=23692
Click to expand...

You are right about it's going to take sport divers. They will be lured to go too deep on their small single tanks and no decompression training. Bound to happen.

I used to teach a technical deep air diving course to 200'. I would have to build the students up to handle that depth and the nitrogen narcosis that went with it. Of course we were also properly equiped and had O2 waiting at 20' and 10'. After years the diving community rethought the hazards of diving that deep on air and made the max depth of the course 170'.

We used to cave dive on air regularly to 240'. Back then we didn't even have O2 to deconpress on and the in water decompression time would exceed three hours. We would be wasted for the next 24 hours.

Now I'm reminising aren't I? But they were good times.
 
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