Thursday, March 17, 2005

More on the Spruance decomissioning Today's article in the Florida Times-Union, Navy retires oldest destroyer amid speculation over carier has a neat bit of trivia and an important fact that I am ashamed to have forgotten. The piece of trivia is that the current Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Vern Clark, was once Commanding Officer of the Spruance. The important fact is that the Spruance was the first 'large' warship in the U.S. Navy with gas turbine propulsion. As the later Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates and Ticonderoga class cruisers would be similarly equipped, what was revolutionary at the time became dead common. One thing that Sprucan sailors will miss when comparing their destroyers to the Arleigh Burke class ships is the relative spaciousness. While there were technical reasons, it was widely believed on our deployment that the Commodore of DESRON 24 opted to have the Spruance as his flaghip vice the (Arliegh Burke class) Roosevelt due to its larger Captain's inport cabin (which became the Commodore's living quarters). In the case of my workcenter, there is no doubt that anyone preferred our comfy space to the workcenter on the Roosevelt, which was cramped by any standard, more so when compared to our compartment. Military comment []4:39:46 PM   trackback []