Constellation sails into mothballs
By Tony Perry
Los Angeles Times
SAN DIEGO — After 41 years, 21 overseas deployments, eight combat tours and decades as a local icon, the aircraft carrier Constellation has left San Diego Bay for a long, slow voyage into retirement.
Associated Press
For sailors who had served aboard the giant ship known as "Connie," it was a sorrowful occasion.
The recently decommissioned aircraft carrier USS Constellation is towed from San Diego. The ship is en route to Bremerton, Wash., where it will be stored at the Naval Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility.
"Connie is my girl," said Chief Petty Officer Efren Ponce, one of a group of sailors who sang "Anchors Aweigh" as the ship departed Friday. "She's where I learned how to be a sailor. I'll miss her."
Tugboats pushed the 1,069-foot-long, 80,000-ton ship way from the dock at North Island Naval Air Station. Its boilers cold, its engines silent and its electronic gear stripped away, the Constellation will be towed to the mothball fleet at Bremerton, Wash.
"It's very sad to see her like this, just a hulk," said Chief Petty Officer Salvador Calfy. "She's too young and too good to go like this."
The Connie is also too expensive. The Navy cannot afford the $500-million-a-year cost of maintaining and operating the Constellation, one of only three conventionally powered carriers in the Navy.
Navy strategy calls for 12 carriers. With the recent commissioning of a 13th, the nuclear-powered Ronald Reagan, the Constellation became expendable. The Reagan is expected to arrive in San Diego in the spring to join the carriers Nimitz and John C. Stennis.
The Constellation once was home to 5,000 sailors and Marines. On its final trip, only four sailors will be aboard to watch for problems with fire and flooding, the twin perils of all ships at sea.
At four to five knots per hour, the ship that moved boldly through the Persian Gulf at 35 knots to launch planes striking at Iraq will take two weeks to complete the 1,200-mile voyage to the Naval Inactive Ships Maintenance Facility.
The Constellation returned to San Diego in June after a deployment in which its warplanes flew more than 1,500 missions and dropped 1.3 million pounds of bombs on targets in Iraq.
"It was a fitting mission for her last deployment," said Lt. j.g. Ian Scott. "She was a warship, and she was good at it."
It is a point of pride among Constellation crew members that the ship, although older and more maintenance-needy, performed as well, maybe better, than other carriers assigned to war duty.
"Other carriers sometimes got under way late, but the Connie always got under way on time," said Lt. Sarah Coplan.
The Constellation, the second in a new Kitty Hawk class of carriers authorized during the Eisenhower administration, almost never made it into the fleet. While under construction at the New York Navy Yard in 1960, the ship's structure was severely damaged by an explosion and fire that killed 50 shipyard workers and injured 150.
A second tragedy struck during a sea trial in 1961 when a flash fire in the engine room killed two sailors and two civilians.
After Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, some of the first U.S. air strikes of the Vietnam War were launched from the Constellation. The ship did seven deployments in support of the war.
In 1982, President Reagan, during an onboard visit, dubbed the Constellation "America's flagship," a nickname that stuck. More than 390,000 landings were made on the flight deck during its four decades in the fleet.
Even in military-centric San Diego, where the comings and goings of ships and Marine combat units are afforded large-scale news coverage, the Constellation was a standout.
Coverage of the ship's decommissioning ceremony in August was voluminous; four TV stations provided live coverage of Friday's unceremonious departure.
Part of the Constellation's charisma may come from its longevity. Few ships remain in the same homeport as long as the Constellation.
The number 64 on the ship's control tower, kept visible at nights by lights, was one of the most recognizable features of the local waterfront.
"That 64 has been there a long time," said Capt. Dan Landon, commanding officer at North Island. "It's going to be a big blank space out there."
