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A Voyage Bearing a Memory

By A. G. SULZBERGER

NORFOLK, Va. — With a barely noticeable tug, the U.S.S. New York pulled out of its berth here Thursday morning, beginning a four-day journey to New York City, where it will be formally welcomed into the Navy fleet.

As a tugboat pulled the ship backward past the huge vessels in the Navy docks, the length of steel lining the front edge of the bow, which was recycled from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, trailed in a soft wake.

Before long, the ship had swung around under its own motor, and that length of steel sliced through the Atlantic swells below an excited crew, who snapped photos with digital cameras and cellphones.

The New York has been deliberately imbued with symbolism. The crest features an image of the twin towers behind a rising phoenix and the words “Never Forget.” And “the sacred steel in the bow of the ship,” said Cmdr. Curt Jones, is a point of pride among the crew members.

“To me it means that no matter how many times you attack us, we always come back,” said Christopher Davidson, 22, a master-at-arms seaman apprentice in the Navy Reserve from the Soundview section of the Bronx.

But the New York is also a warship. It is roughly the length of two football fields, and it gleams with fresh paint and sophisticated technology. Called an “amphibious transport dock,” it is the fifth in a new line of San Antonio-class vessels, distinguished by two hexagonal structures that make it harder to spot the ship on radar and that some have likened to the twin towers.

The ship was named after New York in response to a request from Gov. George E. Pataki. It is the latest in a string of warships bearing that name, dating to the Revolutionary War. Two sister ships are planned to honor victims who died on Sept. 11 in the attack on the Pentagon and in the crash of the hijacked plane in Pennsylvania.

After the New York is commissioned in a ceremony on Nov. 7, its main function will be to transport Marines around the globe. The ship is traveling south to Camp Lejeune, N.C., to pick up military equipment and additional Marines on Friday, before making the three-day journey to New York.
Currently, 186 Marines are on board, in addition to 359 Navy crew members and 60 reservists.

The group includes many New Yorkers who volunteered for the assignment and many making their first voyage on a Navy vessel. The atmosphere on board was earnest, almost celebratory, in part from the prospect of discovery that comes with a maiden voyage, and in part from the anticipation of a stylish homecoming.

Among those on board are a police officer from Westchester County who spent the days after the Sept. 11 attacks combing through the World Trade Center debris looking for survivors. And, riding on a ship for the first time, is a 20-year-old who learned about the attacks while in class at his Bronx middle school.

The New Yorkers spoke with particular excitement about passing under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and approaching the city to a 21-gun salute.

“That is going to be, hands down, the most amazing feeling to know I’m coming home on the U.S.S. New York,” said Frank Lewis, a Bronx resident who is a logistical specialist with the Navy Reserve. “I think that’ll even top the Yankees’ making the World Series, but we’ll see.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/ny...l?ref=nyregion