The past and present life of the "Enterprise"

The past and present life of "Enterprise"

Text/Huang Zheyuan

? Enterprise is a legendary name. Treating this name as a noun may disappoint the translator. The original meaning is revealed, and the verb-object phrase can reflect its original meaning.

As early as 1775, the name "Enterprise" had been used by Americans to name warships. At that time, a British sloop "George" was captured by Colonel Benedict Arnold and given After arming, it was renamed "Enterprise". The second warship "Enterprise" was a multi-masted schooner purchased by the Continental Congress in 1776; the third "Enterprise" was also a multi-masted schooner built in Baltimore in 1799; the fourth The first "Enterprise" multi-masted schooner was built in New York in 1831; the fifth "Enterprise" propeller-powered sailing ship was built in Kittery, Maine in 1877; the sixth "Enterprise" was a steamboat. Served in the Navy's Second District during World War I; the seventh USS Enterprise and the first aircraft carrier to be named USS Enterprise (CV-6), 1938 at Newport, Virginia News built.

It was this ship that created the legend of the Enterprise. She is the U.S. warship with the most battle stars. In 1942, she escorted the Hornet and completed the mission of bombing Tokyo; in the Battle of Midway two months later, it was her bomber formation that destroyed Akagi and Kaga. , as well as Feilong and Canglong. Enterprise was damaged during the subsequent Battle of Santa Cruz, but she repaired it as she went, and launched aircraft to attack Hiei. After this naval battle, the United States had only one fleet aircraft carrier left in the Pacific, the Enterprise. During this period, the Enterprise hung an epic slogan: Enterprise vs Japan. In 1943, the Enterprise was transformed into the first aircraft carrier to carry all-weather combat aircraft. During the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Enterprise was the only aircraft carrier to conduct air attacks against the entire Japanese fleet. And the Enterprise was also among the two battleships that sunk the most, the Yamato and the Musashi.

After the war, her name was inherited by the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier CVN-65. The ship was officially commissioned in 1961 and was the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in the autumn of 1962, "Enterprise The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier "USS" was one of three attack aircraft carriers participating in military operations at that time. In 1964, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, the nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser USS Long Beach, and the large nuclear-powered cruiser USS Bainbridge formed an "all-nuclear force" fleet in the European Mediterranean and launched an operation called "Operation Sea Orbit" ” around the world cruise mission to prove the huge endurance of nuclear power. During her long career, the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise participated in several crises and conducted six combat cruises during the Vietnam War (1965-1973). She was deployed 25 times in her lifetime, the last time she was deployed to the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf regions in March 2012, and her last deployment ended in Norfolk on November 4, 2012.

With the demise of the CVN-65 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the name "Enterprise" will be inherited by the planned CVN-80 "Ford" class new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Times will develop, and the battleship named after the Enterprise will continue to be updated, but the spirit represented by the Enterprise will not fade away. As the saying goes, thirty years of army, fifty years of air force, and one hundred years of navy; the name Enterprise has witnessed the development of the US Navy from scratch, from weak to the strongest, and also reflects another meaning of the word enterprise, "enterprising, enterprising, "Innovation", the continuous innovation of the 8 USS Enterprise also reflects the transformation of the modern navy's main ship from a big gun ship to an aircraft carrier, and then continues to develop in the direction of high technology.

The fighting spirit of the Enterprise is worth learning. In August 1942, during the Battle of Guadalcanal, the Enterprise was hit by three 250-kg armor-piercing bombs, and another four were near misses. After the air attack, the Enterprise burst into flames and the flight deck was severely damaged. However, the damage control team aboard the Enterprise restored the aircraft carrier to a speed of 24 knots after one hour and restarted the operation of recovering the carrier-based aircraft. This cannot but be said to be a miracle.

(Compare the damage control of the Taiho) In the Battle of Santa Cruz, the Enterprise was hit again by six 250-kilogram bombs, and another one was near-missed, but it luckily escaped all the torpedoes. As a result, the Enterprise was able to avoid sinking, but at this time the U.S. military had only this aircraft carrier left in the South Pacific. Under this emergency situation, the Enterprise was repairing and fighting at the same time, and still beneficially supported the US military's operations on Guadalcanal. On May 14, 1945, the USS Enterprise was hit by a Japanese kamikaze aircraft, and the front elevator was blown to an altitude of 100 meters. Two days later, it withdrew from the battle and returned to the mainland for overhaul. The reason why the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier was hit many times and did not sink was that, in addition to luck, the excellent response ability of the aircraft carrier damage control team was closely related to the superb command skills of the commander. At present, if China wants to become an aircraft carrier power, in addition to possessing advanced aircraft carriers, it also needs excellent aircraft carrier combatants. At the same time, the fighting spirit of the navy is still indispensable.

In Star Trek 3, the Enterprise was destroyed but the American Empire rebuilt an Enterprise at the end of the film. The Enterprise starship in the movie was given "to explore strange new world, to seek out new" life, and new civilizations"; this is consistent with her enterprising spirit. In reality, with the launch of the Ford aircraft carrier, the new Enterprise will surely reappear in front of us in the next ten years. The former Imperial Japanese Navy will continue to be a dog in the future; Russia, which has not built a surface ship for decades, has Maybe the Four King Kongs will be sold back. It’s time for me, the romantic figure in the Pacific, to appear.