Redleg13a Posted October 4, 2012 Share #1 Posted October 4, 2012 St Louis Post Dispatch article\ The USS Inaugural was a WWII minesweeper and was on display in St Louis until the 1993 flood. She broke free of her moorings and capsized. She was never recovered and she is still laying on her side in the river. The link shows a pic. Here is another link about it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redleg13a Posted October 5, 2012 Author Share #2 Posted October 5, 2012 Looks like someone stole the 3"/50 forward mount and the 40mm aft mount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoubleEnvelopment Posted December 23, 2012 Share #3 Posted December 23, 2012 I saw an article that mentions this reappearing due to low water levels on the Mississippi. Some Jerk graffitied it, unbelievable!!! http://news.yahoo.co...-181848393.html Edit: here's the Wikipedia article, it has a few more pics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Inaugural_(AM-242) I don't understand the financial or mechanical implications of saving a ship in this state but I think It's very sad, this ship deserves a lot better fate than to be half stuck in some mud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MWalsh Posted December 23, 2012 Share #4 Posted December 23, 2012 This is really quite an interesting, and bizarre, story. Today I saw a news story about how the drought in the Midwest has led to the revealing of all sorts of things in the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, including the remains of the USS Inaugural, as very briefly noted in the article linked in the original post. I started google searching the ship and the Forum and found this post, the articles I found on the web were sure interesting. Apparently the ship is now owned by a private party as salvage, a least one gun was removed and restored, then stolen allegedly, etc. Sounds like it was a nice museum ship at one time, there is an older website devoted to it, too bad a WW2 veteran ship has ended up like this, I am surprised the Navy has tolerated it, as I had thought that even old decommissioned ships were still technically the property of the USN. If you go to Yahoo search under the ship name and check out all the images, then read the Wikipedia entry for the Inaugural too, then read the links in that article too. MW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redleg13a Posted January 10, 2013 Author Share #5 Posted January 10, 2013 The Navy still retains ownership of most museum ships but the Inaugural was purchased by an individual so the individual owned it, not the Navy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redleg13a Posted January 10, 2013 Author Share #6 Posted January 10, 2013 http://www.news.stlpublicradio.org/post/uss-inaugural-finally-emerge-her-watery-grave Looks like the Inaugural is being broken up and sold as scrap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nix284 Posted January 10, 2013 Share #7 Posted January 10, 2013 As a kid in "The Lou" I visited the Inaugural several times and have vivid memories of cranking the 40MM guns around. They even had old helmets lying around to put on while you shot down Zero's. What a sad fate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvmhm Posted February 2, 2013 Share #8 Posted February 2, 2013 What a sad fate for this ship. My dad was a tug operator back in the day. When I was about 6 years old, the Inaugural stopped in my hometown (Cape Girardeau, MO) on it's way to St Louis. My dad took me and my sister down to see it and also on board. I assume it was in an effort to keep me from splashing in puddles (it had rained earlier in the day), he had me convinced that if I stepped in a puddle on the deck, I'd fall through the ship and into the river. Needless to say, I spent most of my time avoiding all the puddles! Here's a picture of my sister on one of the AA guns...somewhere I've got one of me and my dad standing in front of the gun tub. At the time, I didn't know it was going to be a museum, and of course, we didn't go to STL very often, so I missed a chance to see it when it was still afloat. It would be nice to be able to get a piece of it - my dad died in April 2011 and my stepmother/brother/sisters didn't give us one &^&^%) thing of his. Mark sends Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvmhm Posted February 2, 2013 Share #9 Posted February 2, 2013 Here's a pic of the ship from above: Mark sends Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elvis3006 Posted February 12, 2013 Share #10 Posted February 12, 2013 What a shame.......such a waste of history. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MWalsh Posted February 13, 2013 Share #11 Posted February 13, 2013 Any news on the fate of this? Last I heard it was about to be cut up. Is that on hold for winter? Sad. MW Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redleg13a Posted February 18, 2013 Author Share #12 Posted February 18, 2013 Nope, they've started cutting her up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redleg13a Posted February 24, 2013 Author Share #13 Posted February 24, 2013 Updated photo's post-scrapping. They aren't done but have definitely done damage. http://www.undergroundozarks.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7941&start=330 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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