ROOSEVELT ROAD, Puerto Rico and
 |
As the USS Oscar Austin pulls into the harbor at Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, one thing is immediately clear - this is not your average liberty port. The sun shines down on crystal surf as strains of calypso music drift across the water, children laugh and frolic close to shore and shoppers bustle amid the busy bluestone shops clustered around the waterfront. Welcome to the islands, "mon." The island of St.Thomas includes some of the most incredible stretches of coast on earth. This tiny addition to the stars and stripes was a well-earned respite for sailors of USS Oscar Austin after their long underway period. This
laid-back, tropical oasis has a slightly shady past involving the
exploits of pirates. You'd think the stomping ground of Blackbeard and
the mythical Bluebeard would be the last place to find a beach party,
but a fine port is a fine port whether you're unloading plundered booty
or looking for a little rest and relaxation. St.Thomas is strikingly beautiful, thanks to a spine of hills whose green ridges form headlands separating bays and coves filled with turquoise-blue water; each has it's own distinct character and feeling.
Charlotte
Amalie, the capital of the Virgin Islands, is a busy port, and she
wears her Old World heritage with style. Sailors walking past the neat,
pastel-painted warehouses and the dual Danish-English street signs have
no doubt that this isn't an American shopping mall. |
|
After
long weeks at sea, what better way to relax than basking in the sun on
some of the best white-sand beaches in the Caribbean? Magens Bay,
probably the best beach on the island, is a large sliver of bright sand
and vibrant palm trees that shows up on lists of the top 10 beaches of
the world.
"This place is absolutely beautiful, it's really our first good liberty port,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Ginamarie Doherty. "I got to do some shopping for souvenirs for my husband and son and went on a Tiki raft ride." The earliest settlers in the Virgin Islands were the Indian tribes of the Ciboneys, the Arawaks and the Caribs. Columbus arrived in 1493, and maybe feeling the lack of female company shipboard, called the islands Las V'rgenes. The United States first recognized the strategic importance of the islands' fortresses and deep-water harbors during the American Civil War. At the outbreak of World War I, these islands became critical to control the Caribbean basin and the Panama Canal, so the United States purchased them from Denmark for $25 million in gold, the highest price ever paid for a U.S. territory until that time. Today $25 million wouldn't even buy you the smallest of the many beautiful beachfront hotels on St. Thomas, much less the island itself, but a few hours spent scouring the many markets is sure to bring a bargain-hunting sailor some personal treasures. After
a few days spent lounging beneath swaying palms and swimming through
these transparent waters, the Sailors of Oscar Austin had no doubt as
to why St. Thomas is known as "America's Paradise." St.Thomas Web-Shots
 ........ ...............................................................USS Mississinewa AO-144 at anchor in Saint Thomas in January 1967, by Richard Jahr |
|
| U.S. Naval Station
Roosevelt Roads is located
at the eastern edge of Puerto Rico. Its land mass consists 8,600 acres.
President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the construction of the facility
in 1940. It was completed in 1943 and Roosevelt Roads was commissioned
as a U.S. Naval Operations Base. It served as both a training facility
and base for Navy ships and aircraft during World War II. Naval Station Roosevelt Roads has an 11,000-foot runway, nine piers, a water treatment plant, four sewage treatment plants, 110 miles of road, miles of oceanfront,and 1,340 buildings and adjoins approximately 194,000 square miles of ocean. |
 |
Landing Craft -YFU-102
moored at Navsta Roosevelt Roads, P.R., by Dan
Manning Roosevelt Guard
|
 |
|
For several years after the war, Roosevelt Roads languished and was closed down seven different times. Then in 1955, as Cold War tensions increased, Roosevelt Roads became the site for the establishment of the Atlantic Fleet Guided Missile Training Center, which became the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Training Facility. It was redesignated as Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in 1957, consisting of an airfield, Surface Operations and an industrial complex The initial build-up and expansion of Roosevelt Roads included the acquisition of the Army's Fort Bundy, which now comprises the southern portion of the naval station. The Navy first began a series of land acquisitions on the nearby island of Vieques in late 1941. Maneuvers and training began six years later in 1947. The Rosello agreement was coupled with a Presidential Directive in 2000 that allowed for transfer of the land in the west of Vieques. The land transfer was completed in 2001. The eastern portion of Navy lands on Vieques was turned over to the U.S. Department of the Interior on May 1, 2003. On
Sept. 30, 2003, President George W. Bush signed the 2004 Defense
Appropriations Act into law. The legislation includes language that
calls for the Navy to close Roosevelt Roads in accordance with the
provisions of the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Act of 1990. Although there are no
ships homeported at Roosevelt Roads, approximately 100 military (U.S.,
foreign and NATO) and maritime ships used the facilities at Roosevelt
Roads last year. |
|
| Hulk
of ex-USS Killen (DD-593) Moored at Roosevelt Roads
Naval Station, Puerto Rico, 2 February 1970.
She was then in use as a target ship for the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Range. Photographed by PH1 Don Grantham. |
 |
|
................................. Scene from Filmed
on Guantanamo Base
Natalaya
asks James why he's going to stop Alec, because all the heroes she
knows are dead. |
 |
| They
manage to enter Alec's base and with Natalaya's computer skills and a
couple of Q's gadgets, they manage to stop Alec and Boris from reaching
their objective. After they have escaped the base Natalaya and James
check to make sure that they are ok in an empty field. Wade arrives and
moments later they discover that the empty looking field in fact
contained about 30 marines in camouflage! Base
Closing
CEIBA, Puerto Rico — The Navy has closed its
last base in Puerto Rico, a complex that served as a staging ground for
U.S. interventions from Grenada to Haiti but fell into disuse after the
military gave up a prized training area on the island of Vieques.
While 200 sailors and civilians will remain at
Roosevelt Roads Naval Station to help in the transition, the base was
transferred Wednesday to a special naval agency that will coordinate
the closing process, spokesman Oscar Seara said. Navy security guards
are among those staying. “No longer is it Naval Station Roosevelt
Roads,” said Ted Brown, a Navy spokesman in Norfolk, Va.
The U.S. Caribbean territory’s government has
proposed turning the area into a cruise ship dock, commercial airport,
tourist resort and light industrial park. “This is the golden opportunity that Puerto
Rico has to develop a mixed economic base,” said Milton Segarra, Puerto
Rico’s economic development secretary. In recent months, the Navy moved out thousands
of troops and employees, along with bombs, torpedoes and other
supplies. Officials said about 2,000 troops and civilian personnel were
being moved or offered jobs elsewhere, while some 1,000 contractors
were losing their base jobs.
“At the beginning, it’s going to be difficult,
but the town is going to grow and we can move on,” said Jorge Cruz, who
lives next to the base in the eastern town of Ceiba and complained
about military planes at night. In recent years, the base’s main purpose was to
oversee bombing exercises on the nearby island of Vieques, and tensions
rose there in 1999 when two errant bombs killed a civilian guard.
A surge in protests followed, with opponents
saying the bombing harmed the environment and the health of Vieques’
9,100 residents. The Navy denied it, but decided to close the range
last year in the face of sustained protests and moved training to spots
in the mainland United States. With the closure, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba will
be the only U.S. naval base left in the Caribbean.
The federal government has the first option on
base property. Officials say the U.S. Army Reserve, Department of
Homeland Security, U.S. Postal Service and other programs have
requested 250 acres. Then the local government will have the option
to request land, and the Navy will be able to sell other land to
private buyers. At least 4.6 square miles are ecologically
valuable and will be set aside for conservation, said Luis E.
Rodriguez, secretary of natural resources. The base is fringed with
beaches that meet marshes and rocky outcroppings. Rodriguez said the Environmental Protection
Agency has identified at least 18 contaminated sites on the base
requiring cleanup. The Navy says it will clean up contaminated sites
before land is handed over.
|
|
