| | |  Americas & Beyond | July 2008 
Entrepreneur Fights to Bring Old Warship Home
 Marc Lacey - International Herald Tribune
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| | DD-74 John Rodgers off Iwo Jima, Feb 15, 1945. | | |
Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico - In its glory days, the United States Navy destroyer John Rodgers was one of the most decorated warships of World War II. Now, its hull rusting and its big guns whitened by bird droppings, the abandoned destroyer finds itself in the midst of a final battle, one that could turn the historic ship into a museum or, alternatively, into a heap of scrap.
The John Rodgers was one of 175 Fletcher-class destroyers that shepherded aircraft carriers and provided withering cover fire during amphibious landings. During two and a half years in the Pacific, it fought the Japanese in the Philippines, Kwajalein Atoll, Guam, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It steamed into Tokyo Bay in September 1945, having earned a remarkable 12 battle stars without losing a single sailor.
Fletcher destroyers were one of the most successful weapons deployed during the war, although they suffered heavy losses from kamikaze attacks in the western Pacific. Only five of the ships remain today: four as museums (in Buffalo, New York; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Boston; and Faliro, Greece) and the John Rodgers, which is tethered to a dock in Lázaro Cárdenas, in the state of Michoacán on the Pacific coast, where Mexican officials want it removed forthwith.
After the John Rodgers retired from the U.S. Navy in 1946, it was loaned to the Mexicans, who renamed it the ARM Cuitláhuac. Eventually the Mexicans bought it outright and used it on patrols, including hunts for narcotics traffickers, up until July 2001.
Then along came Ward Brewer 2nd, 45, an American entrepreneur who drafted a plan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to recycle World War II-era ships as floating headquarters during domestic disasters in the United States. A Florida congressman introduced legislation to simplify transferring ownership of some old U.S. Navy vessels to Brewer, but the bill was never approved.
Although Brewer's disaster plan never won the backing of the U.S. government, he did manage to persuade the Mexicans to issue a presidential decree in 2006 turning over the John Rodgers to his nonprofit Beauchamp Tower Corp.
The John Rodgers would be based in Mobile Bay, Alabama, Brewer proposed, a floating museum most of the time but a communications and logistics center should disaster strike.
First, though, the ship would have to get home, which has proved a tricky task.
"We ran into a number of issues," Brewer acknowledged in an interview by telephone.
A convincing man, Brewer managed in August 2006 to persuade a Texas towboat company to haul the John Rodgers through the Panama Canal to Mobile - without paying the company anything upfront.
John Rodgers veterans - a group that is dwindling in numbers as years pass - planned their reunion in October 2006 to coincide with the arrival of the ship at Mobile Bay. It was a no-show, though. And the ship, used to war, found itself enmeshed in an international legal battle.
John Bergene, owner of the towing firm E.J. Ventures, said he dispatched a tow ship and a crew of five to Mexico on Labor Day weekend 2006. At the last moment, he said, Brewer called to say that the first installments on the towing fees would be delayed until after the holiday. The money never arrived, but Brewer provided bank references that persuaded Bergene to proceed.
"I went ahead and bought the fuel and hired the crew, and against my better judgment we left," Bergene said by telephone from the Netherlands.
After the team arrived in Mexico, Bergene said, more delays were forthcoming. "He said Wednesday you'll get your money, and then Thursday and then Friday," he said. "Finally I said, 'We're not going anywhere until I get my money."'
After a month and a half, Bergene arranged for another towing job and sailed away.
He later won a U.S. court judgment of nearly $800,000 against Brewer and Beauchamp Tower Corp. Unable to collect from either of them, he has a lien on the John Rodgers.
"It's hurt me badly, and it's hurt a lot of people badly, and it's made the Mexican government look like fools," Bergene said. "The Mexican government needs to go after Ward."
Even without Bergene's prompting, the Mexicans may do just that.
Noting that they have been infinitely patient, the Mexican authorities say Brewer initially told them that he would store the John Rodgers at a granary pier for a week or so after it was removed from the nearby naval base. It has now been moored more than 18 months, and Mexican port officials said they were consulting lawyers and making plans to seize the ship and sell it for scrap.
"The hurricane season is coming, and it's a danger for all of us," said Samuel Fonseca, head of the grain port at Lázaro Cárdenas. "If they can't move it from this port, we have to see what we can do."
Even if the John Rodgers is scrapped, a fate most other Fletcher destroyers have already met, it will probably not bring in enough to cover all the accumulating debts associated with it, Mexican officials say.
Besides the $800,000 court judgment, Mexican officials say Brewer owes as much as $1 million in fines and other fees associated with the ship's long stay in Mexico. Beauchamp Tower Corp.'s tax form in December 2007 put gross income at less than $25,000.
Turning old warships into museums is typically far more costly than most veterans groups imagine. The old vessels are floating asbestos mines. They are full of assorted solvents, fuels and other dangerous substances. Plus the guns worry the U.S. government, which wants assurances that they are licensed or disabled.
The challenges do not stop there. Spare parts are a problem. The crew members who know the vessels best are dying off. Then there is insurance, constant painting, naval architect's fees and assorted permits.
On top of all that, the cost to tow it home has ballooned as fuel prices have soared. What was originally a $350,000 job, Bergene said, is now about $500,000.
Then there is the condition of the ship. Left alone in seawater for more than a year and a half, the John Rogers is showing signs of wear. Rust is building up, and the wind is tearing away at the deck where American sailors once watched some of the Pacific war's greatest battles unfold.
"I used to go on deck and watch everything going on, especially off Okinawa," said Gerry Fried, 91, a former navy radio operator now living in Scottsdale, Arizona. "And it was very exciting when the ship pulled into Suruga Wan and shelled the shore."
At some point, the John Rodgers, last of a breed of swift warships that carried nearly 300 sailors into battle against the Axis, might not be able to be moved.
"You can see it is deteriorating," said Juan Manuel Ortega Montaño, whom Brewer hired as the shipping agent for the John Rogers. "Things are falling off."
Some of those who served on the ship are resigned to never see it again.
"I'd like to see it brought back to the States of course, but it seems to be headed to scrap yards," said David Carnell, 87, of Wilmington, North Carolina, who was a young officer aboard the John Rodgers in 1945.
Brewer, though, remains ever the optimist. Rushing to what he said was a meeting to deal with the fate of the ship the other day, he said by telephone from Florida that deals were in the works, plans were being made and sensitive discussions were taking place.
The John Rodgers would be on its way to the United States by the month's end, he said. Later, he said that could slip to August, at the latest.
"We're planning to move it out of there," he said, urging that no article on the ship be published until his deal was done. "I can't go into any details." |
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