Ranger goes to scrap; sunset of frigate class creates decommissioning boom

For sailors who hate to see a warship go dark, the coming year will be tough to take.

San Diego will lose four warships in 2015, continuing a surge in the retirement of U.S. Navy vessels, and the former San Diego aircraft carrier Ranger will pass by our shores as it is towed to the scrapyard.

Frigates McClusky, Vandegrift and Gary will leave active service at San Diego Naval Base as part of the sunset of the frigate fleet.

Ten of the Navy’s last operating frigates will be decommissioned in 2015, creating a boomlet of ship deactivations nationwide.

The Oliver Hazard Perry class of small-but-sturdy warships is reaching the end of its 30-year lifespan.

Also in 2015, the amphibious assault ship Peleliu will be placed in inactive status, after returning home to San Diego from its final deployment this week.

Certainly, the shuttering of warships has implications for U.S. security – though the Navy has a shipbuilding plan expected to increase the size of the now 288-vessel fleet to more than 300 by 2018.

But it’s also sentimental for sailors.

Veterans of the Vietnam-era carrier Ranger had to give up their fight to turn the vessel into a museum ship.

The Navy announced on Monday that it will pay a Texas scrapyard one penny to tow the ship from Washington state and dismantle it. The company, International Shipbreaking, will get its money by selling the scrap metal.

It’s an inglorious end for a carrier that participated in both the Vietnam War and the first Persian Gulf War.

“I’m very sad for it. My father also served on her — he and I served one tour together,” said John Slaughter, a Ranger sailor from 1968 to 70 who was involved in the fundraising effort to save her.

“There’s an incredible love affair that sailors have with their ships,” he added. “There’s no way to explain it. It’s just the way we are.”

The Ranger did 22 Western Pacific deployments – including sailing from San Diego to support Operation Desert Storm in 1990 – before being decommissioned in 1993.

Despite the ship being on “donation hold” for eight years, the USS Ranger Foundation was unable to raise the necessary funds to convert the ship into a museum.

Slaughter said the target amount was $15 million. The foundation attracted tens of thousands of dollars but never got close to the necessary figure, he said.

The other issue was a more than 100-year-old railroad bridge over the Columbia River. The bridge would have to be dismantled to allow the carrier to pass through on the way to Fairview, Ore., where she was welcome as a potential boost to tourism. Fairview is just east of Portland.

The Navy — which spends $10 million a year keeping up inactive ships — said not all can have an afterlife.

“While there are many veterans with strong desires that the Navy not scrap the ship they served on, there were no states, municipalities or nonprofit organizations with a viable plan seeking to save the ship,” Navy officials said in a released statement.

“The Navy cannot donate a vessel unless the application fully meets the Navy’s minimum requirements for donation, and cannot retain inactive ships indefinitely.”

The Ranger will leave its current home in Bremerton, Wash., in January or February. The trip to Brownsville, Tex., will take four to five months. The ship is too large for passage through the Panama Canal and must be towed around South America.

The story is different for San Diego’s retiring frigates.

The McClusky, Vandegrift and Gary are slated to be sold to foreign militaries.

This is common practice. The frigate McInerney, decommissioned in 2010, was sold to Pakistan.

This month, President Barack Obama signed legislation authorizing the sale of four decommissioned frigates to Taiwan. China has since lodged a protest.

Meanwhile, the Peleliu – a big-deck amphibious ship used to launch the Marine Corps’ Harrier jets – will be placed in reserve status

Ships laid up for long-term storage can be reactivated, but it doesn’t occur often.

One example was in the 1980s, when the Iowa-class battleships were reactivated as part of a hoped-for buildup to a 600-ship Navy.