USS Olympia- Sad news for naval history...

kiasutha · Post by **kiasutha** » Sat May 29, 2010 12:58 am

From the Philly paper by way of the GQ Yahoo group-

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homep ... _sunk.html

Panzerleader71 · Post by **Panzerleader71** » Sat May 29, 2010 1:08 am

Well, if the only choices are Reefing or scraping...better she end her days as a reef, rather then a box of paper clips.

ww2navyguy · Post by **ww2navyguy** » Sat May 29, 2010 3:34 am

Wow, that really stinks. I was up in Camden, PA several years ago and took the USS New Jersey tour, but not the USS Olympia tour (Olympia was moored on the other side of the waterway). Now I really wish I took the extra time to go and check her out too.

It's really a shame to see these national treaures not being able to be maintained and preserved for our future generations to see and learn about. Our country seems to be losing so much of our important history.

I pray they can find a way to save her. A reef is not a good choice for the oldest steel ship left afloat.

Thanks for raising the awarness.

voltigeur · Post by **voltigeur** » Sat May 29, 2010 3:50 am

I thought the oldest ship still afloat in the Navy is the USS Constitution? I know she is the oldest still commissioned.

kiasutha · Post by **kiasutha** » Sat May 29, 2010 5:36 am

voltigeur wrote:I thought the oldest ship still afloat in the Navy is the USS Constitution? I know she is the oldest still commissioned.

The key words here are "steel ship", & I don't think they just mean US...

ww2navyguy · Post by **ww2navyguy** » Sat May 29, 2010 8:47 am

My bad. I meant the oldest "steel-hulled" ship, like the article in the link referenced.

suisse6 · Post by **suisse6** » Fri Jun 11, 2010 12:27 pm

The two other old steel warships are the Mikasa (Japan, 1901) and the Aurora (Russia, 1897), the difference is that these two are actually preserved, much like the USS Constitution and the HMS Victory. Scrapping and reefing are short sighted uses at best. They'd be better off dry docking it like the Uboat in Chicago. It is sad that the us Navy cannot come up with some funding for this to maintain a living piece of our naval heritage.