Inside the Ghost Ships of the Mothball Fleet

I'm a old Army guy, but I find the US Mothball fleets and Davis-Monthan AFB aircraft storage site fascinating. I would have loved to hang out with this guy as they walked the decks. I once was stationed at Lewis, and got to walk the docks, but was never allowed to board.

scotthaefner.com...


I poked around the search but didn't find anything current.

Very cool.
Thanks for the find.

reply to post by TDawgRex


Where are the docks at ft Lewis?

reply to post by aceto


Well there is one you can dive off at American Lake.

Bremerton is just north of Lewis. Short drive. But a nasty one with all the traffic.

Awesome pics.
good job

I lived in San Francisco in the late eighties early nineties. We used to go up to Suisun Bay on my boat all the time and check out the mothballed ships. They were extremely creepy ghost ships. Just thinking of how many guys must have died on board them during the wars.....we would just go near them, I never even WANTED to go on board because they were so creepy, especially at night.....Those guys were brave to actually go and stay overnight on board such ghost ships.

They will now be sold to China as scrap so they can melt them down and make cheap crap out of them and sell it back to you at walmart.

reply to post by CaptChaos


We used to sell scrap metal to the Japanese back in the 1930s and early 40. Look where that got us. Are you sure they'll be making stuff to sell back to us or possibly be sending us a special delivery in the form of a bomb or tank?

Wow. This is so cool. Looks like a 3 star hotel room at least. I envy these guys.



.. Brings back the old memories when I was a just a kid, venturing into weird uncommon places.

I hate seeing the USS Iowa in that shape.

That ship needs to be a museum. If only I had the money...

The bloody Sea Shadow is there!

Originally posted by Azador
The bloody Sea Shadow is there!

It was up for sale a while back. Would have made an awesome yacht if the NAVY permitted modifications.

reply to post by ZIVONIC


Yea i actually think they were pretty much going to give it away if a museum showed interest. I just thought it was cool it was still docked in its big ship thingy. I also wondered if they'd ripped all the goodies out?

Hey you guys, do you have any mothballed aircraft carriers and warships that we Brits can borrow? We seem to have lost a few. Oh, some Harriers and other strike aircraft would also be welcome.

I used to live in Berkeley and knew about these things. I always thought they should be cut apart with welding torches and used for housing or something. But it looks like they're in pretty bad shape.