Show Scrap the Battleships The days of or tho the battleship are arc at an end as the fighting backbone of or the to fleet Tho hey hey- dey of or the battlewagon was inthis in inthis inthis this century up to world war tsar II II when the aircraft earner carrier took look over the key role in fleet operations IN WORLD war I I. I perhaps battleships reached the i r hc heights of glory In the Battle of Jutland the English anc and I German fleets slugged it ou out outI I as ships of the line in the traditional Ira tra tra- tra manner and battleships battleships battleships battle battle- ships and were i the giants of the opposing fleets i Today Todar the United Stales still stillI I has seven battleships in moth moth- balls Four were wore the thc newest and best we wc had in the late da days of world war II and arche are arc the he he Missouri Iowa New Jersey Jeri Jer Jer- i scy sey and Wisconsin On the decks of the Missouri 1 the Japanese Japanese Jap Jap- anese surrendered in 1945 1915 THE TILE NAVY is thinking of j I scraping these big ships which carr carry cany larger guns than I any warships we now have in operation It has definitely decided decided de de- to scrap three others still in the reserved fleet Ala Ala- Alabama Massachusetts bama Kama Indiana and amI Massachusetts l older and less powerful power power- fl ful types t 1 The navy will get relatively little for them as scrap Last 1 Sear ear ar the South Dakota brought less than a half haIr million dollars dol lars lars from scrappers I I- AT THAT return certainly we the could keep the last four battleships another five years or r so and see what u use use c might be fie made of them and not be losing much The price of scrap might be higher in the future And since the last four old ladies cost about each in world war II and would cost at least double that 0 today once they are scrapped we we will never again have ha such I powerful seagoing conventional convention convention- al artillery available to us |