USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg

USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg

Ship data other ship names USS General Harry Taylor Shipyard Kaiser Shipyards Keel laying February 22, 1943 Launch October 10, 1943 Decommissioning 1983 Removal from the ship register 1993 Whereabouts Sunk in 2009 as an artificial reef

Ship dimensions and crew length 159.36 m ( Lüa ) width 21.79 m Draft Max. 7.32 m

Machine system machine Steam turbine Machine performance 7,400 kW Top speed 17 kn (31 km / h) propeller 1

The USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg is an American warship from World War II . It was sunk in 2009 and has served as an artificial reef ever since .

Military history

Under the name General Harry Taylor , the ship served first as a ferry and later as a troop transport for the US Army during and until 1950 after the Second World War . It was then held as a reserve and finally decommissioned in 1958.

On June 15, 1961 it was reactivated, first handed over to the US Air Force and renamed and reclassified to USAFS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg on June 11, 1963 . From 1964 it was then used in the Navy as a United States Naval Ship with the designation USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg as a track tracking ship, among other things, for observing the rockets of the Mercury , Gemini and Apollo programs . It was named after the former head of the CIA - in keeping with the Vandenberg's operational area as a missile observation ship in the Cold War. It was decommissioned in 1983 and deleted from inventory in 1993.

Non-military use

In 1999 the ship achieved world fame: In the science fiction action horror thriller “ Virus - Ship of No Return ” it was portrayed by the Russian military research ship “Akademik Vladislov Volkov”. The white paint and the Cyrillic lettering that were given to it at the time determine since then the exterior of the wreck.

wreck

Divers at the wreck of the ship

The Vandenberg was sunk as an artificial reef in Florida on May 27, 2009 - as part of the Artificial Reefs of the Keys (ARK). Using explosive charges, the ship sank within two minutes as planned. The Vandenberg is a well-frequented dive site within the so-called Florida Wreck Trail in the middle of the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary National Park . It is the second largest ship deliberately sunk for this purpose after the aircraft carrier USS Oriskany .

Web links

Commons : USNS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• History of the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg. Retrieved December 20, 2009 . 
• Details about the conversion of the ship. Retrieved September 20, 2015 . 

Coordinates: 24 ° 27 ′ 11 "  N , 81 ° 44 ′ 14"  W.