Invader26 wrote:
James, HMAS Melbourne still exists in China. She was sold for scap but used by Chinese designers of their new carrier. We tried to save the last DDG, HMAS Brisbane, but the gumnit spent millions sending her to the bottom as a divers wreck. Brisbane served in Vietnam etc and as the last steam boat [turbine] in the RAN...
I'm not sure the Melbourne still survives? it seems clear She was used for study by the Chinese and the "flightdeck" was reported to be kept for actual flight training (I'm not sure how you keep the "flightdeck" without the rest of the ship?) but since that time China has acquired 2?? younger and more advanced Russian Carriers second hand and I wonder if the Melbourne still survives in any form today??- Google Earth devotees seem to be able to locate these Russian Carriers in China as well as a couple of other large Russian Cruisers? acquired and turned into hotels?? etc - but no one seems to have located a small flat top and identified it as HMAS Melbourne still surviving today.
Australia had the chance to preserve HMAS Melbourne, there was a serious study of it as a floating museum ship, however Australia too has struggled to justify or allocate resources to maritime history.
We still have a very rare 1800's Breastwork Monitor rotting away in Victoria as a coastal breakwater,(the ancestor of the modern Battleship, one of only 3 surviving in the world) the only relic of Australia's colonial navies, for the last 50 years there have been campaigns and studies to save it, yet government simply funds the studies rather than its recovery - it is now starting to collapse apart.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMVS_CerberusWe have some WW1 J class submarines scuttled in Victoria with occasional talk of recovering one for a museum, while one remains rotting within a defence commando training base, used for practising drop off and recovery (or it was when there was enough of it to do so)
In Australia we do have 2 WW2 Australian Corvettes (Minesweepers) preserved, HMAS Castlemaine is in the water as a museum ship at Williamstown Victoria, and HMAS Whyalla is high and dry as a museum in South Australia and the HMAS Diamatima a RAN WW2 Frigate used in Japanese surrender signings is preserved in the water with the Queensland Maritime Museum. Although its a "fish out of water" the Whyalla will probably last the longest given its removal from the salt water environment and far easier access to maintain.
http://hmascastlemaine.com/http://www.maritimemuseum.com.au/Collections/diamantina.htmAustralia's National Maritime Museum has preserved HMAS Vampire a post war Destroyer (the largest preserved Military ship in Australia, as well as HMAS Onslow - and post war conventional diesel submarine, along with the 1870's Sailing Ship the "James Craig" and smaller patrol boats etc.
We have another Oberon class submarine preserved @ 500 miles inland at Holbrook (its external and top skins at least), while a third is rotting away in the Westernport Bay awaiting permission to be dragged ashore to become a tourist attraction.
So two possible but improbable and unlikely WW1 or earlier ship preservation opportunities, 3 preserved WW2 RAN ships and a handful of post war Naval ships, perhaps a reasonable effort for our population at the time and our Naval history?, and a shattered Japanese midget sub from the attack on Sydney Harbour.
We have an interesting River Boat history in Australia and the townships of Mildura, Wentworth, Swan Hill and Echuca (ie local government) have done a wonderful job of preserving Australian paddle steamers or even operating them as very succussful tourist attractions, but fresh water, wooden construction and smaller size, and perhaps more wider public interest or tourism appeal make these so much more viable than preserving and displaying large military steel ships in salt water for other communities and governments.
A few other sailing ships survive in Australia, the Alma Doepal struggles to survive?, the Polly Woodside landlocked but preserved in a drydock in Melbourne, and then there are the replica's of the Bounty, the Endeavor and the Enterprise, and South Australia are working hard to save the rare Clipper Ship "City of Adelaide" from being "deconstructed" by the Scottish Maritime Museum because they cant afford to keep it and restore it, and instead given to Australia for preservation in Adelaide.
http://cityofadelaide.org.au/
Perhaps then Australia has fared reasonably well in preserving large ships from its history, other than the ongoing missed opportunity of the HMVS Cerberus?
As James said, it is very surprising that the UK has preserved little of its WW1 or WW2 Naval heritage, with only the HMS Belfast surviving? given the RN's and English legend of ruling the seas - but I do think in part this is because England so financially bankrupted by the war rather than a lack of the sense of history - it always surprises me that the UK got down to only 1 combat veteran Lancaster or no Halifaxes being preserved for a while. - Perhaps it simply reflects the usual outcome, than historicl significance and preservation issues arnt considered during the life or activity, but judged important at a later time, risking the heritage being lost before we value it and try and save it.
The "Aircraft Carrier" was an important element of WW2 and its great that so many have been preserved in the USA, I'm not so sure British WW2 Carriers should have been preserved ahead of a Destroyer from the River Plate, or a Cruiser etc in terms of British significance, and it would have been nice to keep one of each and avoid the argument!, but they are largely all gone so its a mute point today, although apparantly 2 British "WW2" carriers still survive in India with one be preserved as a museum?
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The preservation scene for British or Commonwealth aircraft carriers is none existent, most of the Fleet Carriers were scrapped in the 1940s and 1950s, HMS Victorious was scrapped in 1970 and regarded as a sad loss, the last aircraft carrier which had any significant wartime service was HMS Attacker which was scrapped as late as 1980! Whilst for HMS Ark Royal, which was decommissioned 4 December 1978. Its preservation effort failed; so the hulk was sold in 1980 and subsequently scrapped. More recently Venerable and Vengeance (Minas Gerais) were still actively operating with the Navies of Argentina and Brazil. An active campaign by a British group tried to safeguard Vengeance in 2003-2004 however there was a complete lack of support from the British Government or the Fleet Air Arm and Royal Naval Museums in the UK. Her fate was sealed and with no assistance to preserve her in the UK, Vengeance was towed to Alang in India and was being scrapped 2004-5.
Today there with no real preserved former Royal Navy carrier the nearest effort is merely a mock up of an aircraft carrier at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton to provide the public with a "Carrier Experience". This exhibition embarrassingly cost more than it would have cost to purchase the real carrier HMS Vengeance. A sad state of affairs for ship preservation. By comparison the US has had the foresight to preserve its great wartime carriers, 11 still exist in the States.
The renown Royal Navy aircraft carriers that were sunk in conflict with the enemy may have been largely forgotten in people's mind and may be now just be rust but in some cases are as real as the day they were torpedoed or sunk and are preserved as underwater war graves, a total of 9 Royal Navy carriers may still survive as underwater wrecks today.
Yet there is still some little hope for preservation of British Aircraft Carriers. Some, 2 British aircraft carriers laid down in the Second World War still survive to some extent, HMS Hercules and Hermes. One, HMS Hercules is becoming a Museum in India as the INS Vikrant, whilst the Hermes (INS Viraat) is still actively operating with the Navy of India. The UK still has one last opportunity to preserve those important class of ships in its Maritime History, there is time but only just......
Hermes/Viraat was refitted in 2009 and is expected to be in service with the Indian Navy until 2019, Hercules/Vikrant still survives as a museum ship, I'm not sure for how long?
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Vikrant is opened to the public by the Indian Navy for short periods, but as of April 2010, the Government of Maharashtra has been unable to find an industrial partner to operate the museum on a permanent, long-term basis. She is the only World War II-era British-built aircraft carrier to be preserved as a museum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INS_VikrantAt the other end of the spectrum the US has done a marvelous job of preserving large ships, the Queen Mary, a U-Boat (under cover!), the various and many WW2 and early post war Carriers, submarines and Battleships, and while I suspect some of the WW2 ships will be eventually be culled, there is the opportunity to manage them with some type of long term strategy - ie as proposed above, start grouping them in pairs to make a critical mass of visitations, support infrastructure, support volunteers, - start moving some of them onshore into freshwater / saltwater or drydocks, or more likely simply into escavated landbirths, although even those will be expensive as dirt will rot a vessels hull quicker than salt water and there will be no way to clean or paint it for protection? Concrete or plastic lining might be viable solutions but it all costs more than a hole in the ground or leaving a ship in the water - initially.
These preserved WW2 and large ships then will likey be "mankinds" only examples for future generations, not just US Heritage, and they will need to be managed collectively.
That might mean some miss out on funding, and some local communities, or service associations feel hard done by, as the decisions will need to consider duplications versus representative examples, historical significance of one versus the better condition/better location or more completeness of another?
Obviously many will survive another 50 years without drastic decisions being made, but as the WW2 Veterans pass, and perhaps their children do too, Society will need to balance war memorial, failed tourism attractions and maintance costs against the real need to actually preserve some of these for the long term- most likely still in open air, but perhaps not all floating in the water?
Its like all of the Vulcans displayed in air museums in the UK, or Concordes preserved around the world, while freely available they are perhaps better displayed than scrapped, but do we need to preserve all of them indefinately? or just a few of them preserved very well and ongoing into the future?
Its hard to believe that in 1949 the English or the French - couldnt see any benefit in keeping an original sailing ship survivor of the Battle of Trafalgar?, but perhaps just an earlier generations example of the pain and heartache that fate and time offers for the future of many existing preserved large ships?
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For more than 50 years she was a Devonport training ship until 1908 when enthusiasts raised £25,000 to repair her wooden hull. Between 1932 and 1937 she was a training vessel for 10,000 youngsters and then served throughout World War 11 as a 145 year-old veteran – the oldest wooden warship afloat.
Her reward in 1949 was a slow, two-hour death as charges were exploded in her hull and she sank to the strains of 'God Save the King' and 'The Marseillaise'.
According to the World Ship Trust she was "murdered for want of funds and public awareness of her plight. She could have been restored and re-rigged for posterity".
As HMS Warrior joins Mary Rose and other historic vessels at Portsmouth and Dundee maritime museums we should make sure we don't allow other great ships to be murdered and sunk in the dismal manner of HMS Implacable.
Before Implacable was scuttled the British government felt that France would appreciate the return of an historic ship. The French government sadly refused to accept her or the costs involved in restoring and maintaining her.
Sinking as a dive reef, is a better solution than scrapping, the structure lives on for a period longer, offering some form of "inspection" or public "visit" and evidence of survival (Artifacts/portions of the wreck might be recovered again in the future - but highly unlikely)
- interestingly one of the solutions to preserve the HMVS Cerberus a little longer from imminent collapse so it can be "saved", has been to remove the massive gun turrets from its superstructure so as to lighten the weight on the remaining structure, and to sit those guns on the sea bed where the reduced exposure to air will rust them slower than the current salt spray and air exposure, (we spent $80k to do that by the way, are spending another $0.5M studying how to save it properly and need $5M now just to save it where it is - where as $5M 10 years ago would have put it up on dry ground in a more intact and meaningful condition and accessible to the public?).
You CANT save EVERYTHING, but equally you "CANT!" save NOTHING, its finding the happy medium in the middle (and finding the money) thats difficult!
Regards
Mark Pilkington
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As ocean front condominiums, something like this might even be self supporting! Too practical I'd guess. You'd have to deed the carrier or have a long-term lease with a private corporation to make it work (like the casino idea).
Yes, massive.
