Posted on: 11:03 am, June 18, 2013, by Doris Taylor, Matt Knight and Todd Corillo
Norfolk, Va. - After 51 years of service, the USS Enterprise headed to Newport News Shipbuilding for the final time this morning. NewsChannel 3′s Todd Corillo was the only television reporter onboard for the trip.
Once at the shipyard the ship’s nuclear fuel will be removed from its eight nuclear reactors.
She is expected to stay in Newport News until 2016 when she will be towed to Puget Sound in Washington to be scrapped.
Nearly 150 shipyard workers were present for the move as a last tribute to a vessel that many of the workers had a role in building.
Enterprise was inactivated December 1, 2012, following a week of tours for shipyard workers, veterans, families and friends. During the ceremony, the Secretary of the Navy announced that CVN-80 will be named USS Enterprise.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
OK - I'm a geek, especially about vessels named "Enterprise". The latest "Big E" that was decommissioned is actually the 8th warship in the US fleet to bear the name "Enterprise". The first was an English Sloop that originally bore the name "George" that was captured in 1775 by a raiding party led by none other than Benedict Arnold on Lake Champlain, fitted with some cannon, rechristened "Enterprise" and was the centerpiece of the Continental Navy on Lake Champlain during the Revolutionary War.
The first "Big E" was a Yorktown-class carrier and the most decorated ship in the history of the US Navy.
The recently decommissioned USS Enterprise was the first of the Union's nuclear powered aircraft carriers and was supposed to be the first of 8 Enterprise class carriers that would be built, but she ended up being the sole Enterprise class carrier ever built. The reason? Cost overruns - some things never change, do they.
The Enterprise was also the name of a balloon which sent the first telegram from an aerial platform, to none other than Abraham Lincoln, during a demonstration on how balloons might serve the Union Army.
There was also a Goodyear blimps that was christened "Enterprise" pressed into military service during WWII.
I can't imagine that the Navy would every retire that name entirely - too much history is wrapped up in that name for it to be abandoned.
