Friday, June 27, 2008

A warship built at Hunters Point is to be sunk

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A once powerful guided-missile cruiser that was built at San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, fought in the Vietnam War and the Gulf War, and was then mothballed in Suisun Bay, is scheduled to be towed to sea today to be strafed, torpedoed and sunk by allied forces in the Pacific.

The Horne (CG-30) was named for a Navy admiral who began his career on sailing ships at the turn of the 20th century, and will be remembered by legions of former crew members who served on the ship during its quarter-century of service. The ship's passing echoes a bygone era when San Francisco Bay was ringed with naval bases and warships were often seen.

Capt. Tim Lockwood of the fleet ocean tug Navajo said he plans to tow the Horne beneath the Golden Gate this afternoon on its final voyage toward Hawaii, where a multinational exercise is scheduled to use the cruiser's steel hull and superstructure for target practice.

"It's laid to rest," Lockwood said. "That's all I can say."

The Navajo is equipped with 7,200-horsepower engines - enough heft to tow an aircraft carrier. The 226-foot tug has a crew of 20 and a 1,800-foot tow wire that can pull a vessel of up to 500,000 pounds.
Commissioned in 1967

The Horne was commissioned as a guided-missile frigate in April 1967. With its tall bridge, Terrier missiles, helicopter deck and a huge sonar drone beneath the water line, the 547-foot warship was considered one of the finest vessels in the fleet. Its twin propeller shafts provided speeds of 36 knots. Its crew included 24 officers and 420 enlisted personnel.

It took five years for shipfitters, pipe fitters and boilermakers at Hunters Point to build the 8,000-ton vessel. Once commissioned, the Horne was sent to Vietnam as an escort ship to protect an aircraft carrier, deter MIG fighters from interfering with U.S. bombing runs, and rescue downed American pilots in the Gulf of Tonkin.

The Horne, home ported in San Diego, served four tours of duty in Vietnam. It also saw duty in the first Gulf War to liberate Kuwait and was deployed at other flash points including the coast of Iran in 1980-1981, Libya in 1987-1988, and Liberia in 1993.

"Serving on the Horne was probably my highlight at sea," said retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, the Horne's first skipper, who later became director of central intelligence for former President Jimmy Carter. "It hurts me personally (to hear the ship will be sunk), but I can certainly understand it. A ship that old, it's just too costly to upgrade its communications and weaponry."
52 years of Navy service

The warship was named after Adm. Frederick J. Horne, who retired in 1947 after 52 years of active service in the Navy. As a midshipman, he fought at the Battle of Santiago in the Spanish-American War. As a junior officer, he used a brass mouth horn to shout orders to sailors working aloft on the Alert, a square-rigged sailing ship.

Decades later, as vice chief of naval operations, Adm. Horne played a major role in directing the Navy's efforts during World War II.

He died in 1959, and three years later, the Navy laid the keel of the Horne to honor him. The ship was launched and christened by his widow, Edythe Horne, in October 1964.

In the mid-1970s, the Horne was modified and reclassified as a cruiser. In 1994, after nearly 27 years of service and traveling more than 750,000 miles, the Horne was decommissioned by the Pentagon's budget cutters. The Horne's payroll ran about $1 million a month.
Benicia mothball fleet

The Horne joined the Suisun Bay National Defense Reserve Fleet in Benicia - a collection of mothballed warships.

"As far as I can tell, there's no other ship afloat that was built at Hunters Point," said Paul Watroba, a representative of the Navy League. "The other ship that was around for a while was the (guided missile cruiser) Halsey. I think it was already sunk."

The South Pacific has become a graveyard of once-proud warships. Since 1971, the biennial Rim of the Pacific exercises provide a month of intensive warfare training and the opportunity to test naval gunnery, torpedo accuracy and missile drills with real targets and live ammunition.
Allies involved

This year's exercise, from Sunday through July 31, consists of 35 surface ships including the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, six submarines including the South Korean sub Lee Sunsin, more than 150 tactical aircraft and 20,000 personnel from Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Netherlands, Peru, South Korea, Singapore, United Kingdom and the United States.

Sarah Burford, a spokeswoman for the Military Sealift Command, said that the Horne is one of four warships scheduled to be sunk during this summer's exercise. The Horne was moved to a pier in Richmond in February for final preparations.

"We spend a lot of time and money to get the ship ready and to remove any environmental problems," Burford said. "We don't just tow it out there."

Apart from the battleship Iowa, there are few warships left in Suisun Bay. The mothball fleet is largely made up of auxiliary ships such as troop transports.

For sailors, a ship is more than a collection of metal and wires.
Memories of shipmates

Memories of the Horne run deep for former crew members, who cite the ship's motto - "L'Audace, Toujours, L'Audace" (Audacity, Always Audacity).

"I think a lot of people are understandably upset about it," said Joe Westerberg of Palm Springs, a former crew member who created a Web site for the Horne, www.usshorne.net. "But I was a bit relieved to hear that the ship was going to be sunk in the ocean. I think a more fitting resting place for a ship is in the ocean rather than being torn up in a scrap pile."

Some sister ships of the Horne, including the Halsey, have been torn apart at a ship-breaking facility in Brownsville, Texas.

"The USS Horne was literally my home," Westerberg said. "As a single crew member, I lived on the ship for almost three years. It really was a well-run ship - and that passed on from captain to captain and crew to crew."

Posted by Westie99 at 1:19 PM