May 30, 2006: On May 18th, naval history saw a number of notable events. Most obviously, the American aircraft carriers, the Oriskany, was scuttled off Florida, to form the largest artificial reef ever. But there's more to it than that. The Oriskany itself is quite a major history item. This ship is the last of the "Essex" class carriers. Ordered months before the Pearl Harbor attack, these 24 Essex carriers were the largest class of capital ships ever built. Over thirty were ordered, but since the war ended while many were still under construction, or not even laid down, only 24 were completed. The last of these was the Oriskany, commissioned in 1950, after having been much modified by World War II experience and the introduction of jet aircraft. It's keel was laid in the New York Naval Shipyard (in New York City) in May, 1944, and was launched in October, 1945, two months after Japan had surrendered. Work was suspended for several years, as the admirals debated whether to scrap the unfinished carrier, or modify the design and complete the it.
Like so many other New Yorkers, the Oriskany ultimately went to Florida to retire.
The Oriskany served for 26 years, and made 17 voyages to distant seas. Over 200 sailors died while serving on the Oriskany, including 94 pilots who were lost in action. The Oriskany fought off Korea and Vietnam. Over 40,000 sailors served on the "Mighty O." While the Essex class ships were the principal American warships used to defeat Japan, they were eventually superceded by much larger, nuclear powered carriers. The original Essex ships were 26,000 tons (displacement), 800 foot long ships, while current carriers are about four times that in displacement, and a thousand feet long.
Unlike several other Essex class ships (like the Intrepid in New York City), no one wanted to make a memorial of the Oriskany. Pensacola, Florida, however, was willing to have the ship sunk off the coast, as an artificial reef. After several years of negotiations, and $20 million in renovations (to remove toxic materials and such), the "Mighty O" was sent to the bottom by 22 scuttling charges. It only took 35 minutes to go down, must faster than the estimated 4-5 hours. A small boat was seen on the flight deck. This contained a generator and controlled the detonation of the charges. This boat floated free as the "Mighty O" went down. As planned, the carrier landed on the bottom (212 feet down), upright, facing south. This means, for divers, that the flight deck is 130 feet down. That's too far for most recreational divers, but the top of the "island" on the flight deck is only about 70 feet from the surface, close enough for divers to visit. Divers are advised not to go inside the ship, as it's easy to get lost, and there are a lot of tight spaces.
The entire ship, and its thousands of compartments, will become a huge hotel for hundreds of fish and underwater plant species. Complex structures like this attract a much denser concentration of underwater creatures that does the normal underwater topography. The Oriskany will become a fisherman's paradise, just like the smaller sunken warship nearby, the 1896 era battleship Massachusetts. This 350 foot long vessel was sunk for target practice, in only 30 feet of water, in the 1920s. Part of the is Massachusetts is still above water, and tons of its superstructure was salvaged for scrap metal during World War II, or blown off when the wreck was used for target practice by bombers. The Oriskany will remain free of such interference, and will quietly decompose over the next few centuries.
