and runs to 30 November 2022. You can read Dr. Walker’s article on the NMHS website at www.seahistory.org/magazine (scroll to Sea History 175). South Carolina’s Governor Henry McMaster signed Executive Order 2022-20 in July, commissioning an updated cost study for the removal of toxic pollutants from the World War II Essex-class aircraft carrier Yorktown. When the ship was donated to Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in Charleston Harbor in 1975, the Navy did not remove the approximately 160,000
uss yorktown fdn.
launched 18 April 1950 at Rice Brothers’ shipyard in East Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and was installed at the Columbia River Bar station in 1951. The approach to the Columbia River Bar was the first lightship station on the US West Coast; WAL-604 was the fifth lightship to serve in that location. She was the last lightship station on the coast, and when she was retired she was replaced with the automated LNB. In turn, that LNB was decommissioned in 1993, and it was acquired by the museum. The lightship, which had been assigned the new designation WLV-604 [W (US Coast Guard) Lighted Vessel] when the Coast Guard shifted nomenclature in 1965, was sold to the state of Oregon in 1980 and then acquired by the Columbia River Maritime Museum. (1792 Marine Dr., Astoria OR 97103; www.crmm.org) … In June, Professor Timothy D. Walker was awarded the 2022 Rodney Houghton Award for the Best Feature Article in Sea History for his article “Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad,” based on his book of the same name, published by the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Since
USS Yorktown at Patriots Point gallons of petroleum and 1.6 million gallons of polluted waters and polychlorinated biphenyl compounds (PCBs) in the ship’s 428 vessel tanks/compartments. A 2013
U.S. LIFE-SAVING SERVICE HERITAGE ASSOCIATION Preserving history, artifacts, and architecture of the Life-Saving Service and the U.S. Coast Guard
courtesy tim walker
USLSSHA Membership includes quarterly issues of
Dr. Timothy D. Walker its publication just over a year ago, the Sailing to Freedom volume has garnered broad attention and gained solid traction. The book has been the subject of numerous lectures, panel discussions, and podcasts, most of which were recorded and can be accessed online. Further, at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, Walker is the advisor and co-curator (with the museum’s curator, Michael Dyer) for a groundbreaking new exhibition chronicling the experiences of enslaved persons who made their way to freedom using coastal water routes along the Atlantic seaboard. The exhibition opened in May in the Centre Street Gallery SEA HISTORY 180, AUTUMN 2022
Wreck & Rescue Journal
plus an invitation to our annual meeting and conference, held in a different, historical area of the U.S. each year. www.uslife-savingservice.org uslssha@gmail.com 51