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USS Independence CVL-22 located by NOAA Survey


gwb123
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Charlie Flick

That is an interesting story, Gil. The ship had a great but short history.

 

BTW, the CNN story says the ship spent "20 years in the Navy". Actually, it was commissioned in 1943 and decommissioned in 1946.

 

A similar story is found in the 4/16/15 edition of the San Jose Mercury: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_27931161/scientists-find-radioactive-aircraft-carrier-off-san-francisco

 

Today it seems rather incredible that after being subjected to 2 nuclear blasts the radioactive ship was towed back to San Francisco Bay where it stayed until 1951. (This may explain why people in the Bay area act the way they do....it must have been the steady diet of Uranium 235....)

 

The pic below shows the Independence burning following one of the blasts during Operation Crossroads.

 

Regards,

Charlie

 

USS_Independence_(CVL-22)_burning at Operation Crossroads.jpg

 

 

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That is a pretty sizable dent in the stern of the vessel... it shows in the photos on the news story as well.

 

Other photos from the second test show the flight deck pretty broken up... but the ship was still floating.

 

Yes, I wondered about parking a radioactive ship in the middle of a US port as well. Oh, the things we thought we knew but did not know back then!

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