Amy Hotz, reporter with the Wilmington Star-News, felt that with all the publicity around the commissioning of the new nuclear submarine USS North Carolina this past weekend, that people might have forgotten about the Battleship North Carolina which has been a memorial in the city since the 1960s.
She reported about its commissioning and service during WW II wjich can be see at the wikipedia entry for the ship.
What I found interesting was the effort to save the ship from the scrap yard after the Navy said they were going to send the ship there in 1958.
The North Carolina was decommissioned June 27, 1947, and put into the mothball fleet at Bayonne, NJ, where it stayed for the next 14 years. In 1958, the Navy said the ship would be scrapped. A campaign called SOS, Save Our Ship, was mounted where thousands on North Carolinians donated money, including most of the state's school children. The sum of $270,000 was needed and $330,000 actrually raised.
The ship arrived in Wilmington Oct. 2, 1961, and was dedicated a WW II memorial in 1962.
I remember bringing in pennies and nickels as a NC student back then. Every class was competing to raise the most in school. The USS North Carolina's stern struck a floating restaurant as it was being turned into it's final mooring place. The next day, the restaurant had a giant purple heart on the side of it.
I'm happy to see so many states now saving their naval namesakes. It is a shame to scrap these magnificent vessels.
A Grand Old Ship. --Cooter
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