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February 28, 2008 By Steve Stone, The Virginian-Pilot
The World Trade Center may have come down, but some of the steel that once was its backbone will soon serve in the nation's defense.
On Saturday, the Navy’s newest San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, the New York, is to be christened at the Northrop Grumman Ship Systems’ shipyard along the banks of the Mississippi River in Avondale, La., near New Orleans.
It is named in honor of the city and state New York, as well as in tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that leveled the Trade Center. Lending strength in that mission, within its hull is 7 1/2 tons of steel salvaged from the wreckage of the Twin Towers.
That steel was melted and given new life in fashioning the ship's "stem bar" – a part of the bow, the most forward portion of a vessel.
"After the keel, the stem is the most important structural part of a ship," Drew Demboski, assistant design manager for the Navy's San Antonio Class program, told MarineLink.com.
"Use of this steel symbolizes the spirit and resiliency of the people of New York," the Navy said in a press release Wednesday, announcing the christening.
About 24 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center was collected from the debris field in Staten Island, N.Y., which rose as the Trade Center site was cleared. It was sent to Amite Foundry and Machine in Amite, La., to be melted down.
But there were concerns about using more than a symbolic few pound of it in a warship, given the stresses it had already endured.
To allay fears the steel might be insufficient to its new mission, engineers from the Naval Sea Systems Command’s Materials Engineering Directorate were called in.
They determined that, despite the fires and the stresses of the collapse of the Trade Center, the steel was up to the task with the addition of small amounts of steel alloy. That cleared the way to use thousands of pounds instead of a few in the bow stem casting.
When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, "those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing said at the time. "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there."
In August 2005, the bow stem fashioned with the WTC steel was attached into the main hull section and the completed bow was then put in place in March 2006.
By tradition, state names were reserved to battleships. But with the end of the era of the "battlewagons" as the aircraft carrier became the Navy's principal surface warship, state names came to be typically used in the naming of submarines.
After the 9/11 attacks, however, N.Y. Gov. George E. Pataki asked that a Navy surface ship involved in the War on Terror be named in honor of the victims, which include those at the Trade Center as well as in an attack on the Pentagon in Northern Virginia and in the Pennsylvania crash of one of the four airliners hijacked that day.
Approval for the name came in August 2002.
"Our nation's enemies brought their fight to New York," Pataki said afterward. The New York "will soon be defending freedom and combating terrorism around the globe, while also ensuring that the world never forgets the evil attacks of Sept. 11 and the courage and strength New Yorkers showed.”
All Navy ships have a motto. For the LPD 21, as the New York will be numerically known, it is: “Never Forget.”
For the christening of the New York, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England will deliver the ceremony's key address. His wife, Dotty England, is the ship's sponsor and she will wield the bottle of champagne in time-honored Navy tradition, smashing it across the ship's bow.
The New York is the fifth amphibious transport dock ship in the San Antonio class. It will support amphibious, special operations and expeditionary warfare missions.
The ship will be used to transport and land Marines, their equipment and supplies, using air cushion or conventional landing craft and amphibious assault vehicles, augmented by helicopters or vertical take off and landing aircraft.
Cmdr. F. Curtis Jones, of Binghamton, N.Y., is the ship's first commanding officer and will lead a crew of 360 officers and enlisted personnel. Additionally, the ship is able to carry a landing force of up to 800 Marines.
The ship is 684 feet long, has an overall beam of 105 feet and a draft of 23 feet. It displaces about 24,900 tons and has a top sustained speed of 22 knots (about 24 mph).
It will be able to simultaneously launch and recover four CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters or two MV-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft. It’s hangar can store one or two aircraft.
It is armed with a pair of 30mm close-in-guns to defend against surface threats as well as two rolling airframe missile launchers for defense against air attack.
The New York’s keel was laid Sept. 10, 2004. Hurricane Katrina briefly disrupted construction when the storm pounded the Gulf Coast. But the ship escaped serious damage and workers were back at the yard two weeks after the storm, some of them living at the shipyard because their homes had been destroyed.
It was launched Dec. 19 and is to be commissioned in New York City next year. After that, it will be homeported in Norfolk as a part of the Atlantic Fleet.
The four ships of the San Antonio Class launched ahead of the New York were the San Antonio, the New Orleans, the Mesa Verde and the Green Bay; yet to come are the San Diego, which had its keel laying in May, the Anchorage, which had its keel laying in September, the Arlington and the Somerset.
Four previous Navy ships have been named New York, according to the Naval Historical Center.
The first was a gondola that was built by Gen. Benedict Arnold’s American troops on Lake Champlain at Skenesborough, N.Y. in the summer of 1776 and served in the Revolutionary War; the second was a 36-gun frigate that served from 1800 to 1814 and sailed to the Mediterranean in 1802 as the flagship in the war against the Barbary Pirates; the third was an armored cruiser that served from 1893 to 1938 and was the flagship in the Battle of Santiago when the American Squadron destroyed the Spanish fleet in 1898; and the fourth, a battleship that served from 1914 to 1946.
In a quirk of history, the Battleship New York's keel was laid Sept. 11, 1911. It went on to serve as flagship of Battleship Division 9 in World War I supporting the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea with blockade and escort missions.
In World War II, the New York escorted convoys and later provided naval gunfire support during the Invasion of North Africa on Nov. 8, 1942. After being transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1945, it participated in pre-invasion bombardment of Iwo Jima and for the invasion of Okinawa. Like many warships, it became a target of Japanese kamikaze pilots and was grazed by one. The ship earned three battle stars during World War II.
In 1946, it was decommissioned and used as a target ship in two atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. It survived both and was towed to Pearl Harbor where it was studied for two years. It went to its watery grave 40 miles off Pearl after 8 hours of attacks by ships and aircraft during battle maneuvers in 1948.
There was another warship built and named New York, but it never came into naval service. That 74-gun, ship of the line was one of nine authorized by Congress after the War of 1812. It was built at the Norfolk Navy Yard and was ready for launch by 1825, but never left the stocks.
It was maintained in case needed. But on April 20, 1861, the New York was torched by Union forces to avoid capture by the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War. Another ship burned to the waterline that day in the same yard was the Merrimack. It was subsequently salvaged, however, and converted into the ironclad CSS Virginia, which was commissioned in February 1862 and made naval history a month later in combat in Hampton Roads.
Additionally, there was a Los Angeles-class submarine named for New York City. It was launched in 1977 and remained in service 20 years. It was stricken from naval registers in 1997 and is to be disposed of in the ship-submarine recycling program at Puget Sound (Washington) Naval Shipyard.
February 28, 2008 By Steve Stone, The Virginian-Pilot
The World Trade Center may have come down, but some of the steel that once was its backbone will soon serve in the nation's defense.
On Saturday, the Navy’s newest San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship, the New York, is to be christened at the Northrop Grumman Ship Systems’ shipyard along the banks of the Mississippi River in Avondale, La., near New Orleans.
It is named in honor of the city and state New York, as well as in tribute to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that leveled the Trade Center. Lending strength in that mission, within its hull is 7 1/2 tons of steel salvaged from the wreckage of the Twin Towers.
That steel was melted and given new life in fashioning the ship's "stem bar" – a part of the bow, the most forward portion of a vessel.
"After the keel, the stem is the most important structural part of a ship," Drew Demboski, assistant design manager for the Navy's San Antonio Class program, told MarineLink.com.
"Use of this steel symbolizes the spirit and resiliency of the people of New York," the Navy said in a press release Wednesday, announcing the christening.
About 24 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center was collected from the debris field in Staten Island, N.Y., which rose as the Trade Center site was cleared. It was sent to Amite Foundry and Machine in Amite, La., to be melted down.
But there were concerns about using more than a symbolic few pound of it in a warship, given the stresses it had already endured.
To allay fears the steel might be insufficient to its new mission, engineers from the Naval Sea Systems Command’s Materials Engineering Directorate were called in.
They determined that, despite the fires and the stresses of the collapse of the Trade Center, the steel was up to the task with the addition of small amounts of steel alloy. That cleared the way to use thousands of pounds instead of a few in the bow stem casting.
When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, "those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing said at the time. "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there."
In August 2005, the bow stem fashioned with the WTC steel was attached into the main hull section and the completed bow was then put in place in March 2006.
By tradition, state names were reserved to battleships. But with the end of the era of the "battlewagons" as the aircraft carrier became the Navy's principal surface warship, state names came to be typically used in the naming of submarines.
After the 9/11 attacks, however, N.Y. Gov. George E. Pataki asked that a Navy surface ship involved in the War on Terror be named in honor of the victims, which include those at the Trade Center as well as in an attack on the Pentagon in Northern Virginia and in the Pennsylvania crash of one of the four airliners hijacked that day.
Approval for the name came in August 2002.
"Our nation's enemies brought their fight to New York," Pataki said afterward. The New York "will soon be defending freedom and combating terrorism around the globe, while also ensuring that the world never forgets the evil attacks of Sept. 11 and the courage and strength New Yorkers showed.”
All Navy ships have a motto. For the LPD 21, as the New York will be numerically known, it is: “Never Forget.”
For the christening of the New York, Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England will deliver the ceremony's key address. His wife, Dotty England, is the ship's sponsor and she will wield the bottle of champagne in time-honored Navy tradition, smashing it across the ship's bow.
The New York is the fifth amphibious transport dock ship in the San Antonio class. It will support amphibious, special operations and expeditionary warfare missions.
The ship will be used to transport and land Marines, their equipment and supplies, using air cushion or conventional landing craft and amphibious assault vehicles, augmented by helicopters or vertical take off and landing aircraft.
Cmdr. F. Curtis Jones, of Binghamton, N.Y., is the ship's first commanding officer and will lead a crew of 360 officers and enlisted personnel. Additionally, the ship is able to carry a landing force of up to 800 Marines.
The ship is 684 feet long, has an overall beam of 105 feet and a draft of 23 feet. It displaces about 24,900 tons and has a top sustained speed of 22 knots (about 24 mph).
It will be able to simultaneously launch and recover four CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters or two MV-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft. It’s hangar can store one or two aircraft.
It is armed with a pair of 30mm close-in-guns to defend against surface threats as well as two rolling airframe missile launchers for defense against air attack.
The New York’s keel was laid Sept. 10, 2004. Hurricane Katrina briefly disrupted construction when the storm pounded the Gulf Coast. But the ship escaped serious damage and workers were back at the yard two weeks after the storm, some of them living at the shipyard because their homes had been destroyed.
It was launched Dec. 19 and is to be commissioned in New York City next year. After that, it will be homeported in Norfolk as a part of the Atlantic Fleet.
The four ships of the San Antonio Class launched ahead of the New York were the San Antonio, the New Orleans, the Mesa Verde and the Green Bay; yet to come are the San Diego, which had its keel laying in May, the Anchorage, which had its keel laying in September, the Arlington and the Somerset.
Four previous Navy ships have been named New York, according to the Naval Historical Center.
The first was a gondola that was built by Gen. Benedict Arnold’s American troops on Lake Champlain at Skenesborough, N.Y. in the summer of 1776 and served in the Revolutionary War; the second was a 36-gun frigate that served from 1800 to 1814 and sailed to the Mediterranean in 1802 as the flagship in the war against the Barbary Pirates; the third was an armored cruiser that served from 1893 to 1938 and was the flagship in the Battle of Santiago when the American Squadron destroyed the Spanish fleet in 1898; and the fourth, a battleship that served from 1914 to 1946.
In a quirk of history, the Battleship New York's keel was laid Sept. 11, 1911. It went on to serve as flagship of Battleship Division 9 in World War I supporting the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea with blockade and escort missions.
In World War II, the New York escorted convoys and later provided naval gunfire support during the Invasion of North Africa on Nov. 8, 1942. After being transferred to the Pacific Fleet in 1945, it participated in pre-invasion bombardment of Iwo Jima and for the invasion of Okinawa. Like many warships, it became a target of Japanese kamikaze pilots and was grazed by one. The ship earned three battle stars during World War II.
In 1946, it was decommissioned and used as a target ship in two atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. It survived both and was towed to Pearl Harbor where it was studied for two years. It went to its watery grave 40 miles off Pearl after 8 hours of attacks by ships and aircraft during battle maneuvers in 1948.
There was another warship built and named New York, but it never came into naval service. That 74-gun, ship of the line was one of nine authorized by Congress after the War of 1812. It was built at the Norfolk Navy Yard and was ready for launch by 1825, but never left the stocks.
It was maintained in case needed. But on April 20, 1861, the New York was torched by Union forces to avoid capture by the Confederacy at the start of the Civil War. Another ship burned to the waterline that day in the same yard was the Merrimack. It was subsequently salvaged, however, and converted into the ironclad CSS Virginia, which was commissioned in February 1862 and made naval history a month later in combat in Hampton Roads.
Additionally, there was a Los Angeles-class submarine named for New York City. It was launched in 1977 and remained in service 20 years. It was stricken from naval registers in 1997 and is to be disposed of in the ship-submarine recycling program at Puget Sound (Washington) Naval Shipyard.