Vintage warship faces a battle for survival
Destroyer may end up as museum or heap of scrap
Marc Lacey and Walter R. Baranger / New York Times
LAZARO CARDENAS, Mexico -- In its glory days, the U.S. Navy destroyer John Rodgers was among the most decorated warships of World War II. Now, hull rusting and guns whitened by bird droppings, the abandoned destroyer finds itself in what could be its final battle, one that could turn the historic ship into a museum or, alternatively, a heap of scrap.
The John Rodgers was one of 175 Fletcher-class destroyers, which shepherded aircraft carriers and provided withering cover fire during amphibious landings. During two and a half years in the Pacific, it fought in the Philippines and at Kwajalein Atoll, Guam, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It steamed into Tokyo Bay in September 1945, having earned 12 battle stars without, remarkably, losing a single sailor.
The Fletcher destroyers were a swift breed that each carried nearly 300 sailors into war. While many of the ships suffered heavy losses from kamikaze attacks late in the war, most ended up in scrap yards in the decades after peace was achieved.
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Only five survive today -- four as museums (in Buffalo; Baton Rouge, La.; Boston; and Greece) and the John Rodgers, which is tethered to a dock in this city, about 150 miles up the coast from Acapulco. Mexican officials want it removed forthwith.
After the John Rodgers was retired in 1946, the Navy lent it to Mexico, which rechristened it the Cuitlahuac. Mexico eventually bought it outright and deployed it on patrols, including hunts for narcotics traffickers. That ended in July 2001.
Then along came Ward Brewer II, 45, an American entrepreneur who drafted a plan after Sept. 11 to recycle World War II-era ships as floating command posts during disasters in the United States. Brewer's disaster plan never won the backing of the U.S. government, but he persuaded the Mexicans to issue a presidential decree in 2006 turning over the John Rodgers to his nonprofit company, the Beauchamp Tower Corp.
He proposed that the John Rodgers be based in Mobile Bay, in Alabama, as a floating museum, but be available as a communications and logistics center should disaster strike.
First, though, the ship would have to voyage home. "We ran into a number of issues," Brewer said in a telephone interview last week.
He managed in August 2006 to persuade John Bergene, owner of a Texas towing firm, to haul the John Rodgers through the Panama Canal to Mobile. Bergene said he never got paid, so he never sailed.
Brewer contends that the towing fiasco resulted from a series of misunderstandings with Bergene and the Mexican government. Still, Bergene won a federal court judgment of nearly $800,000 against Brewer and Beauchamp Tower. Unable to collect, he has a lien on the John Rodgers.
"It's hurt me badly, and it's hurt a lot of people badly, and it's made the Mexican government look like fools," Bergene said. "The Mexican government needs to go after Ward."
The Mexican authorities may do just that.
They say they have been infinitely patient. They say Brewer told them that after having the John Rodgers removed from a Mexican naval base, he would store the 376-foot vessel at a nearby granary pier for a week. It has been there more than 18 months.
Vintage warship faces a battle for survival
Vintage warship faces a battle for survival
For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman. 
