She was still proud, resolute, massively beautiful. As she lolled at anchor in the Willamette River in downtown Portland last week the sunbeams wriggled through her superstructure, flicked over the letters OREGON. Once she was the bravest battleship in the U.S. Fleet, the heroine and toast of the whole U.S. Now Washington had consigned her to the junk heap, where her 10,300 tons of steel, copper and brass could be turned into fighting metals for World War II.
The Oregon had a champion's string of firsts. She was the first modern battleship...
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