And then there were none

Published 3:42 am Friday, May 15, 2015

Naval history buffs: Ever wonder what happened to the Mothball Fleet (aka the National Defense Reserve Fleet), the Navy ships that were left to rust at various anchorages after the end of World War II? More than 200 of them were moored in Astoria.

The photo shown, taken over Tongue Point in 1958, is courtesy of the website http://navy.memorieshop.com, which says that when the Navy began consolidating the West Coast Reserve Fleets in the 1960s and 1970s, the warships held at Tongue Point were towed to Suisun Bay, Calif., or Bremerton, Wash. The Astoria Reserve Fleet facility closed in 1963.

According to a story in the Daily Mail (http://tinyurl.com/astoriamoth), the original reserve fleet of 2,277 (in 1950) is now down to 122 ships. And, of the original eight anchorages for the “rust buckets,” only three remain: Suison Bay, Beaumont, Texas, and James River, Va., where they are quietly rusting away and polluting the water.

But some have lived to serve again. In 2005, four NDRF ships participated in relief operations after hurricanes Katrina and Rita, six went to Haiti to help after the earthquake in 2010, and two were used to assist after Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

Sadly, there’s not much help or hope for the lonely 122 vessels that remain; plans are already in motion to dismantle several of them, and the rest are probably not far behind.

— Elleda Wilson