Queens is sunk

Named originally for the New York City borough, the 473-foot long, 7,000-ton attack transport Queens was launched in 1944. Of 230 such ships built for the war, it is one of only five that remain.

The maiden voyage took officers and enlisted men through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific to Pearl Harbor. In 1945, the ship carried supplies and reinforcements to Iwo Jima and took occupation troops into Sasebo, Japan, 30 miles north of where the atomic bomb had just been exploded at Nagasaki.

But the Queens was commissioned near the war's end, and one of its most memorable wartime duties was bringing thousands of troops home. Its cannons never were used.

Texas Clipper heads to final port of call

[It] was scheduled to sink to its final resting place 17 nautical miles offshore and 134 feet under water today as boatloads of fans and media look on.