Sunk/Scrapped ship(s) you would have loved to see had they survived WWII and were preserved?

For me it would have to be the USS San Francisco(CA-38), a member of the New Orleans class(One of my favorite class of WW2 era ships), she was among the most decorated US Navy ships of the war(17 battle stars), and was in the thick of the fighting at Guadalcanal, participating(and being the flagship) in the battles of Cape Esperance and 1st Guadalcanal(Nov.13th-14th). Such a shame that neither San Fran nor any of her surviving sisters(and most WW2 era cruisers for that matter) were preserved after the war.

 

Enterprise!

Here is a copy of a post I made on WW2F back in Dec 2011

Hi all,

The stern plate from the USS Enterprise was saved when she was being scrapped in Kearny, NJ in 1960. She was decommissioned in 1947. This is the US ship that most deserved to be preserved as a memorial and museum. But she wasn't named for the home state of the President at the time of Japan's surrender so ............ The artifact is now in a small park in River Vale, NJ. It was in the outfield of a little league baseball field nearby for over 40 years before it was restored and moved to its present location.


Story about dedication:

http://www.cv6.org/remember/rivervale.htm

Edit:

Drat! I copied the pictures from the original post but only got the thumbnails:

I'll have to look for the originals later. Sorry about that.

 

Easy for me, Prinz Eugen and the IJN battleship haruna, but would gladly settle for ant Pagoda type Japanese battleship. Those tall towers are compelling. Eugen was pretty tough to survive two atomic bomb blast. but more important is her fine design to my untrained naval eye.

Gaines

 

USS Enterprise

Battleship USS Tennessee

 

HMS Warspite. Jutland and WWII. No contest - it was criminal to scrap it.

 

The USS Enterprise is a no brainer for US WWII ships. She was there from start to finish, 20 battle stars, a PUC, the most decorated ship of the war and the only survivor of the "Yorktown" class, she should have been saved.

USS Tennessee was at Pearl. She, California, and West Virginia received probably the most extensive reconstructions of any of the pre-war battleships. What sets Tennessee apart was that she got back into the fight earlier than the other two. She participated in the Aleutians, Tarawa (was at Betio), the Marshalls (Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Majuro), where she provided some very close Naval gunfire support-"Tennessee was firing at such a short range that, during the afternoon of 20 February, she was able to attack beach defenses with her 40 mm guns", the Bismarks (New Britain, New Ireland), the Marianas (Saipan, Guam,Tinian), Peleliu, Leyte, Surigao Straight, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. She had the most battlestars of the old battleships and a PUC.




USS Tennessee at Okinawa, famous photo.

At least she still survives in two (that I know of) excellent 1/96 scale models.

Pictures of the first one

http://wmunderway.8m.com/gallery48/gallery48.htm

The second is on display at the National Museum of the Pacific War, in Fredericksburg Texas (Nimitz museum)

 

Good choice, Martin, Warspite has an enviable record and would have been a great memorial ship. .If ashe had been saved asnd the only battleship in Europe and the UK I imagine ticket sales would have paid her cost.
It is terrible to think she went to the beakers.

Gaines

 

Hmmm, interesting idea. I have to agree on Warspite being one of them, she was a great ship with a great record. She even had a great name.

Others that occur to me:

1. Jaureguiberry or Bouvet. I love the French pre-dreadnoughts, they're so very French; Art Nouveau battleships, really. Bouvet is presumably still somewhere down in the Dardanelles. And while we are about it a Danton class would be wonderful.

2. USS Monitor, an obvious choice, or Carondelet, which was one of the greatest river gunboats.

3. HMS Petrel, as long as we are on river gunboats. She may still be at the bottom of Shanghai harbor.

4. HMS Agincourt, because she was such a remarkable freak visually and in every other way.

5. I have a yen for armored cruisers, and I would like to see some of the old British or French ships. Good Hope class would be nice, as well as a Warrior or Minotaur class. If I had to pick one armored cruiser, though, it would be the French Waldeck-Rousseau. Find a picture of her and you'll agree with me.

6. The USS Maryland, because she was an old BB and named after my mother's great state.

 

At least we still have the Olympia, Gridley

 

I like your choices, everyone. Speaking of Enterprise, from what I've read and watching Battle 360, there was an effort to raise money to make "Big E" a museum ship, but were unable to make enough to preserve her, and so was sold for scrap, a pity.

 

Here are some better pictures of the stern plate:

 

Set two:

 

Set Three

 

Me next to it for scale

 

Yamato docked next to USS Missouri.....

 

Enterprise
California
Saratoga
Guadalcanal
Washington
Pennsylvania
Nevada
Heermann
Englund
Tabberrer
King George V
Formidable
Norfolk
Nelson or Rodney
Warspite
Haruna
Nagato
Roma
Prinz Eugen

 

In Europe there were 5 or 6 navies with battleships, and they built much more of them than the US Navy. Not a single one has survived.

The only 2 larger surface museum-ships (which were involved in WWI or WW2) in Europe are HMS Belfast and Georgios Averoff.
It is a shame, they even scrapped HMS Vanguard, Richelieu or Jean Bart when everybody knew that they were the last of their kind. The former battlecruiser SMS Goeben went to the scrapyard in 1974.
It was the last existing capital ship, which was really involved in WW1. The last Dreadnought in Europe.
And they scrapped it...

 

Well, not exactly WW2 vintage... But any of Admiral He's "Baoshan" Treasure ships. Between 440 and 538 feet long by 210 feet wide. The 4-decked baoshan had an estimated displacement of 20-30,000 tons.

Built in the early 1400's. Admiral Zhang He's first expeditionary fleet had 62 of these.