Famed USS Enterprise Takes Its Final Voyage

[MicaelS]

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/10/148375398/famed-uss-enterprise-takes-its-final-voyage

No, the REAL one.

The Enterprise was commissioned in November 1961, and was the worlds first nuclear powered aircraft carrier.

It was commissioned 3 years before the Gulf of Tonkin incident which pulled the U.S. full force into the Vietnam War.

The Enterprise is the longest aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet. It is also the oldest, a distinction that brings pride as well as plenty of headaches for the ship's more than 4,000 crew members. The ship is effectively a small city that frequently needs repairs because of its age. It was originally designed to last 25 years, but a major overhaul in 1979 and other improvements have extended its life.

Enterprise will be towed to the shipyard where it was built in nearby Newport News so its nuclear fuel can be removed, a process that will take until 2015. What remains of the ship after that will then be taken to Washington state so it can be scrapped.

This is the eighth ship to bear the name Enterprise, and there's a room on board dedicated as a museum to past incarnations. The preceding USS Enterprise was the most decorated ship in World War II, while the first Enterprise joined the U.S. fleet after it was captured from the British in 1775.

[Robeysays]

1. damn it i thought this was about the star ship. nt

[edbermac]

13. Which version of the Enterprise?

Every movie they make the Enterprise A, B C, etc always gets blown to pieces. They're running out of letters in the alphabet

[Robeysays]

2. i knew of the first one,(HMS) but not the other four in between!

way cool.

[MicaelS]

7. Ships named Enterprise

Actually there have been 8 American and 19 British ships named Enterprise
[link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise|
USS Enterprise
]

Continental Navy

Two ships of the Continental Navy were named Enterprise:

USS Enterprise (1775) armed sloop (18 May 1775 – 7 July 1777), the first American ship to bear the name served on Lake Champlain

Enterprise (1776) schooner (20 December 1776 – February 1777), the second American ship to bear this name served on Chesapeake Bay during the Revolutionary War.

[edit] United States Navy

Six ships of the United States Navy have been named Enterprise:

USS Enterprise (1799) 12-gun schooner / 14-gun brig (17 December 1799 – 9 July 1823), the third ship to bear this name, was built as schooner, and later rerigged as a brig. She fired the first shots in the First Barbary War against the Tripolitanian ship Tripoli

USS Enterprise (1831) 10-gun schooner (15 December 1831 – 24 June 1844), the fourth ship to bear this name

USS Enterprise (1874) barque-rigged screw sloop (16 March 1877 – 1 October 1909), the fifth ship to bear this name

USS Enterprise (SP-790) motor yacht (1917–1919), the sixth ship to bear this name, was non-commissioned, serving in the Second Naval District during World War I

USS Enterprise (CV-6) Yorktown-class aircraft carrier (12 May 1938 – 17 February 1947), the seventh ship to bear this name, served with great distinction in World War II, becoming the most-decorated vessel in the history of the U.S. Navy.

USS Enterprise (CVN-65) Enterprise-class aircraft carrier (25 November 1961 – Present), the eighth ship to bear this name, is a unique design, and the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier. It is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2013.

HMS Enterprise

Fifteen ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Enterprise (or HMS Enterprize) while another was planned:

HMS Enterprise was a 24-gun sixth-rate, previously the French frigate L'Entreprise, captured in May 1705. She was wrecked in October 1707.
HMS Enterprise was a 44-gun fifth-rate launched in 1709. She underwent a Great Repair in 1718-19, was hulked in 1740 and fitted as a hospital ship in 1745 before being sold in 1749.
HMS Enterprise was to have been a 44-gun fifth-rate. She was renamed HMS Liverpool five months before her launch in 1741.
HMS Enterprize was an 8 gun sloop captured from the Spanish in 1743. She was employed solely in the Mediterranean as a despatch vessel and tender, and was sold in 1748 at Minorca.
HMS Enterprise was a 48-gun fifth-rate launched in 1693 as HMS Norwich. She was renamed HMS Enterprise in 1744 as a 44-gun fifth-rate and was broken up in 1771.
HMS Enterprise was a 28-gun Enterprise class sixth-rate frigate launched in August 1774, on harbour service from 1790 and broken up in 1807.
HMS Enterprize was a 10-gun tender captured by the Americans in 1775.
HMS Enterprise was a ship used for harbour service, launched in 1778 as HMS Resource. Resource was rebuilt as a 22-gun floating battery in 1804, renamed HMS Enterprise in 1806 and sold in 1816.
HMS Enterprise was a wood paddle gunvessel purchased in 1824 and in service until 1830.
HMS Enterprise was a survey sloop launched in 1848, used as a coal hulk from 1860 and sold in 1903.
HMS Enterprise was to have been a wood screw sloop. She was laid down in 1861, renamed HMS Circassian in 1862 but cancelled in 1863.
HMS Enterprise was an ironclad sloop ordered as HMS Circassian, but renamed in 1862. She was launched in 1864 and sold in 1884.
HMS Enterprise was an Emerald-class light cruiser launched in 1919 and sold in 1946.
HMS Enterprise was an Echo-class inshore survey ship launched on 1958 and sold in 1985.
HMS Enterprise is an Echo-class multi-role survey vessel (Hydrographic/Oceanographic) launched in 2002 and currently in service.

Four ships served with the Royal Navy were named Enterprise but were not commissioned warships and so did not have the "HMS" ship prefix.

Enterprise, was a British East India Company's armed paddle steamer that served alongside the Fleet in the First China War from 1839 to 1840 and the Second Burmese War in 1852.
Enterprise, was an uncommissioned tugboat that was in service at Portsmouth Dockyard from 1899 to 1919 when she was renamed Emprise. (She continued to serve until 1947.)
Enterprise, was an uncommissioned auxiliary patrol anti-submarine net drifter with Harwich Local Forces from 1914 to 1918.
Enterprise II, was an uncommissioned drifter, originally based at Larne but transferred to Italian waters in November 1915. In March 1916 she struck a naval mine off Brindisi and sank with eight casualties.

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. The 1848 HMS Enterprise was involved in North West Passage exploration

http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=5440

If anyone remembers the opening sequence of the 'Enterprise' TV Series - I think they should have used that. After all, they did navigate a strait where no-one had gone before.

[Rosco T.]

15. I thought they did?

and unlike most, I liked the opening credits and music.. listen to the words, consider where this was set and what was to come.. was fitting.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Well, the wording reads 'HMS Enterprize', not 'Enterprise'

and the 's' spelling was definitely used for the 1848 ship: http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Journal_of_H_M_S_Enterprise.html?id=zrR5LmfV6YUC&redir_esc=y

and the drawing above that looks like it has a high, sloping sterncastle, like a ship much older than the 1848 one:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HMS_Enterprise_%281848%29_and_HMS_Investigator_%281848%29_in_the_ice.jpg

I suppose it could be the generic sailing ship in silhouette on the right. But there's nothing to indicate Arctic exploration.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. I see the first one was French...

That's gonna give some freepers a headache.

[JohnnyRingo]

3. That makes me feel old

I remember when it was shiny and bright. Back then they bragged about how long it would be in the fleet.

Then again, I was a young boy when they launched the Nautilus, and that was recycled into GTOs.

[Throckmorton]

8. No, it is a Muesum at Navel Base, New London, in CT

It is not open Tuesday's.

[JohnnyRingo]

14. The Nautilus? I didn't know that.

I just assumed it was scrapped.
Of course you're right:

http://www.ussnautilus.org/

[lastlib]

4. ...and the one after this one will be a starship! :)

[hughee99]

11. The first space shuttle used for test flights in the 70's was the Enterprise. n/t

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Enterprise

[Speck Tater]

5. "Damn it Jim! I'm a sailor, not an astronaut!" nt

[sarge43]

6. Damn it.

The gallant old lady deserves better than to be scrapped.

[TheMightyFavog]

17. How are you gonna get the radioactive bits out first?

[bighart]

12. My dad served on this ship during the Veitnam era.

Told me some crazy stories about some of the things that happened. He passed about 4 years ago but I am sure he would have mixed emotions about seeing her retired. Served 20 plus years in the Navy. Still miss him.