the last US Navy carrier to be sunk

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 5:04 am

I've done a modest amount of reading on the Vietnam War, and also watched a DVD set on that topic. But I'm pretty sure I had not heard about this incident in which an aircraft carrier docked in Vietnam was sunk by explosives attached to it near the waterline. That was in 1964, and was the last time an American carrier was sunk. The carrier was salvaged back to service, however.

Is this something the rest of you already knew?

dancer_rnb · Post by **dancer_rnb** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:05 am

The ship was an aircraft transport at the time. She was never a first rate carrier. Built on a merchant ship hull, if she was like the other escort carriers.
It wouldn't have been all that memorable.

Worldtraveller · Post by **Worldtraveller** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 11:35 am

[quote=""dancer_rnb""]The ship was an aircraft transport at the time. She was never a first rate carrier. Built on a merchant ship hull, if she was like the other escort carriers.
It wouldn't have been all that memorable.[/quote]
There were quite a few of those around late in the war, and for a couple decades after.

It's always an interesting exercise to see asymmetric warfare demonstrated so clearly. Two guys, with a bunch of explosives, sinking (although salvaged) a small carrier.

I guess the one thing the US learned from Veitnam was how better to deal with asymmetric warfare. Unfortunately, only the military seemed to have retained any of those lessons (and many have since been re-learned in Iraq), but our political engine seems incapable of learning the lessons needed to keep us out of those situations.

Cool bit of history, though.I would be interested to learn how much this was covered in the US press when it happened.

Tubby · Post by **Tubby** » Mon Jul 24, 2017 1:03 pm

[quote=""Worldtraveller""]I would be interested to learn how much this was covered in the US press when it happened.[/quote]

I was a baby, so I don't know how much press it got. I'm quite sure it was never brought up around the house when I got a bit older.

Worldtraveller · Post by **Worldtraveller** » Tue Jul 25, 2017 3:29 pm

[quote=""Tubby""]

Worldtraveller;674958 wrote:I would be interested to learn how much this was covered in the US press when it happened.

I was a baby, so I don't know how much press it got. I'm quite sure it was never brought up around the house when I got a bit older.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I certainly don't think I've ever heard of it before. But my dad never really talked about his time in 'nam. (He was pretty far from the frontlines, being an avionics tech in the AF, but his base did get shelled by mortars more than once.)

Jobar · Post by **Jobar** » Wed Jul 26, 2017 12:11 pm

I was 9 at the time, but my parents always watched the evening news, and I don't recall hearing about this.

crazyfingers · Post by **crazyfingers** » Fri Aug 04, 2017 6:16 pm

The photo in the link in the OP is not the ship in question. The photo in the link is actually the USS Midway CV-41, new class of WWII fleet carrier that followed the Essex class carriers. The Midway was 45K tons.

The story is about the USS Card, which was an escort carrier and only 7.8K tons. A very different class ship and puny by comparison to the wrong photo that's in the linked story. This is the USS Card in the linked story. http://www.navsource.org/archives/03/011.htm