Sinking
On 22 July 2003, Samuel Gompers was sunk in the Atlantic as part of a fleet training exercise (SINKEX). USS Samuel Gompers departed Portsmouth at 08:30 on 18 July 2003 under tow of USNS Apache en route to her SINKEX position. Three ships were sent to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Carolina: Destroyer Tender USS Samuel Gompers (AD-37), Fleet Tug USS Seneca (ATF-91) and Submarine Tender USS Dixon (AS-37).
Of the three ships, Samuel Gompers was the last to be sunk, and slipped beneath the waves at 00:06 on 22 July 2003. The first Harpoon missile to strike Samuel Gompers was from USS Cole, designation: Cole 4. Reports indicate it took 16 Harpoon missiles (400 lbs each) and over 40,000 pounds of ordnance to sink Samuel Gompers. When the Harpoons finished, a squadron of bombers dropped 2,000-pound bombs on her to sink her.
Samuel Gompers is reported to lie at 31° 17' N 073° 51' W
Read more about this topic: USS Samuel Gompers (AD-37)
Famous quotes containing the word sinking:
“Eternal Venice sinking by degrees
Into the very water that she lights;”
—Edgar Bowers (b. 1924)
“I consider that that “that” that worries us so much should be forgotten. Rats desert a sinking ship. Thats infest a sinking magazine.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“We all indulge in the strange, pleasant process called thinking, but when it comes to saying, even to someone opposite, what we think, then how little we are able to convey! The phantom is through the mind and out of the window before we can lay salt on its tail, or slowly sinking and returning to the profound darkness which it has lit up momentarily with a wandering light.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)