As WarbirdsNews reported in December last year, the former US Navy Forrestal-class aircraft carrier, CV 61 ex-USS Ranger failed to find a satisfactory home as a museum ship, thus ending any chance that she might live on a few more years. The sad day came on March 5th, 2015 as the tug boats started the ex-USS Ranger on the journey by sea from Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Washington to Brownsville, Texas where International Shipbreaking Ltd. will set about scrapping the once-proud super-carrier. While a number of groups did hope to save her, none of them presented what the US Navy considered a viable plan sadly. The carrier served her nation and her sailors well through war and peace from 1956 until her decommissioning in 1993. The Navy maintained her as part of the strategic reserve until 2004, and a further decade on “museum hold” before reluctantly deciding upon her present fate. While the ship has just months to go before the final cut, her time will live on in the memories of those she was a home to and in the history books. She will also remain immortalized on celluloid for her starring role in the movie ‘Top Gun’; her decks filled with Tomcats and Intruders… themselves mostly gone now too. We can’t save them all, and some might argue that the permanent preservation of any ship of such vast size is a near impossible task… even with enormous sums of money and available labor. We are lucky to have the museum carriers that we do, and should focus on their preservation all the more ardently.
