laststandonzombieisland

The mighty USS Glacier is being towed away for scrap.

From the time she was laid down in 1953 in Pascagoula until the Polar class icebreakers were designed in the 1970s, she was the largest, best armed, and most powerful icebreaker the US owned. Glacier was capable of breaking ice up to 20 feet (6.1 m) thick, and of continuous breaking of 4-foot (1.2 m) thick ice at 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph).

Her Specs:

• Displacement:   8,449 long tons (8,585 t) full load
• Length:                 309 ft 6 in (94.34 m)
• Beam:   74 ft (23 m)
• Draft:    29 ft (8.8 m)
• Propulsion:         Diesel-Electric
• 10 × Fairbanks-Morse diesels
• 2 × Westinghouse electric motors
• 21,000 shp (16,000 kW)
• 2 shafts
• Speed: 17.6 knots (32.6 km/h; 20.3 mph)
• Range: 29,200 nautical miles (54,100 km; 33,600 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
• Boats and landing
• craft carried:      4 lifeboats, 1 LCVP, and 1 Greenland Cruiser, later 1 Arctic Survey Boat
• Complement:    14 officers, 2 warrant officers, 225 enlisted
• Armament:         • 1 × twin 5 in (130 mm) guns,  3 × twin 3 in (76 mm) guns,  4 × 20 mm guns (as built, after 1968 just GPMGs and small arms)
• Aircraft carried:                 2 helicopters. Air detachment: 14 officers and 10 enlisted.

Glacier was in U.S. Navy service for 11 years, and U.S. Coast Guard service for 21 years. She participated in 15 Operation Deep Freeze expeditions. She discovered Sputnik’s radio signal, served on the blockaid line during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and spent a decade enforcing drug smuggling patrols. Glacier was first icebreaker to make her way through the frozen Bellingshausen Sea, and most of the topography in the area is named for her crewmembers. Following 29 Antarctic and 10 Arctic deployments, Glacier was decommissioned in 1987 at over 30 years of age.

For the last 25 years, the Maritime Administration (MARAD) has kept the ex-Glacier on ice in the mothballs (U.S. Naval Reserve Fleet, Suisun Bay, on the Sacramento River, California.) Finally, this year she was sold for $146,726 to be broken up by ESCO Marine in Brownsville, Texas.

There is where the story gets interesting…

The Glacier Society in Miami Florida wants the ship as a museum vessel and has raised the money to do it. It would, other than the freshwater Great Lakes breaker Mackinaw, be the only USN/USCG larger icebreaker retained for that purpose.

They have contacted the salvage yard and have agreed to have ESCO swap the vessel out for one of equal value in scrap as long as the MARAD gets on board.

If they don’t, Glacier will be razorblades in weeks.

All MARAD has to do is agree to swap ships with ESCO so that the company can turn the Glacier over to the Society trying to save it.

I understand that the MARAD is allowing the former USS/USCGC Glacier to be scrapped without recourse. It is currently on its ways to the breakers as I write this.

This is a national tragedy. With our polar resources now more valuable than ever, our national defense spiraling downward, and our polar icebreaking fleet at its smallest size since 1941, to simply turn the Glacier into razorblades is foul.

The Glacier Society has been fighting to protect this sacred vessel and preserve it as a museum for more than a decade and is ready to accept the vessel as a donation. The MARAD and or the Secretary of Transportation needs to allow the breakers, ESCO and the current towers, Smith Marine, to effect a swap for a vessel of lesser historical value. Since the ship is already undertow and in the Gulf of Mexico, it can be delivered to the Glacier Society in Miami at less expense than at any time previously.

The time to act is now.

Call or email your congressional representative and get the last US Navy icebreaker saved. http://congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt