Glasgow And Ships Of The Clyde

Bad weather stops the public visiting the Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. WASP at Tail-of-the-Bank, Greenock

   Plans to allow the public to visit the U.S. Aircraft Carrier U.S.S. WASP at the Tail-of-the-Bank anchorage off Greenock were cancelled today due to strong winds and rough seas.

   It had been intended, as had happened yesterday when about 700 people had visited the Carrier, that the public were to be taken from Greenock by the ship’s boats to the WASP, but it was felt that the weather made it too dangerous to operate the boats and there would be difficulties in members of the public embarking and disembarking at the Carrier.

   WASP (CVS-18), classified as an anti-submarine carrier and other American warships of Carrier Division 14 under the command of Rear Admiral Paul D. Buie, is on an operational visit to the Clyde and this is not her first visit to Greenock.   She had called there in the Autumn (Fall) of 1952 when taking part in the NATO “Exercise Mainbrace” in which naval vessels from U.S.A., Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Netherlands and Belgium operated in the Norwegian Sea, Barents Sea, North Sea and near the Jutland Peninsula and the Baltic Sea, and the objective of the exercise was to convince Denmark and Norway that their countries could be defended from attack by the Soviet Union.