Flag Tells of Pride in Oldest Ship

For Navy buffs, the teakwood-decked destroyer tender Prairie AD-15 home-ported at Long Beach Naval Station is pure nostalgia. But for the crew, the nostalgia is mixed with hard work.

The 530-foot vessel with a crew of 850 is the oldest ship in the fleet in continuous service since it was commissioned in August, 1940.

As such, it is the only vessel in the Navy entitled to fly the “Don’t Tread on Me” red-and-white-striped rattlesnake flag from the fantail and at the quarterdeck. “Don’t Tread on Me” was the first flag to fly on an American warship in 1775.

Capt. Tom Althouse, 46, born six months before the Prairie was commissioned, and his crew of 700 men and 150 women celebrated the ship’s 46th birthday at a big barbecue Friday. Many of the crew wore special “Oldest And Best” Prairie birthday T-shirts inscribed with a large 46 encircled by an anchor chain and entwined with a rattlesnake wearing a sailor’s hat.

‘Hell of a Ship’

“This is one hell of a ship,” said executive officer Cmdr. Peter Dempsey, 39. “She underwent an intensified survey last year and was pronounced good enough to remain in the fleet beyond the year 2000. And the esprit de corps of her crew is unbeatable.”

Sailors do things on the Prairie that haven’t been done on other Navy ships for years.

They scour the teakwood decks on their knees using holystone, soft sandstone, as sailors of old did for centuries. Quartermasters still log changes in the ship’s course and speed by hand where on modern ships it happens automatically with computers.

The layout of the ship is also a throwback to earlier times. Triple-deck bunks line sleeping quarters that are large and spacious though without the privacy afforded on present-day Navy vessels.

“We have nearly all of the original equipment aboard. When we need replacement parts we have to make them ourselves because they’re no longer kept in inventory. But we’re a repair ship, so that’s no problem,” said Althouse.

Pre-World War II Drills

The ship’s shops are filled with pre-World War II lathes, drills and presses still humming along after nearly half a century.

“Everything is like it used to be long before I was born,” said Carl Moeller, 22, a machinist 2nd class from Hastings, Minn., as he worked at his lathe.

Women crew members, of course, weren’t dreamed possible when the Prairie slid off the ways at the South Camden, N.J. shipyard in December, 1939. But women play an important role on the ship today.

Lt. Linda Lewandowski, 27, from Skippack, Pa., for example, is chief engineer with 150 of the crew under her command.

“This is my third ship and I love it,” said Lewandowski. “It’s a constant challenge, the maintenance, because of its age and having to make our own parts for machinery and equipment because everything is obsolete.”

A Mobile Shipyard

The Prairie was deployed as a mobile shipyard with the fleet in the thick of fighting in World War II, the Korean conflict and Vietnam. It rotates with other tenders in far-flung oceans of the world from time to time, and in several months will leave for a six-month tour in the Far East and the Indian Ocean.