Navy Is Retiring the Last of its Storied Cruisers. To Veterans, They Were ‘the Pinnacle of Naval Power’
Orientul Mijlociu
SAN DIEGO -- Falling in love can happen in a snap. Dave Hatzenbuehler knows this from the way he responded nearly a half-century ago upon noticing a big, brooding presence in San Diego Bay. He'd caught sight of a Navy cruiser, a famously dynamic type of ship that had been turning heads since the 1880s. This one was the USS Long Beach, a muscular brute measuring 721 feet from stem to stern. It also was the world's first nuclear-powered missile cruiser. "It was so powerful and sleek and beautiful,
din zilele anterioare