The Navy has removed the USS Guardian from the Tubbataha Reef near the Philippines, where it ran aground January 17. The ship had to taken apart in order to be safely lifted off the environmentally-sensitive reef.
The Navy has released three videos documenting the removal of the ship. In this first video, the salvage crew aboard the crane ship M/V JASCON 25 remove the bow of Guardian from Tubbataha Reef:
Now, in this video, the crew works on removing the hull:
And, finally, the crew removes the stern of the former USS Guardian:
As Home Post reported last week, the USS Warrior, which was previously homeported in San Diego, arrived in Japan on Wednesday to replace the decommissioned Guardian.
The crew of the Guardian will take over the Warrior, which will now be forward deployed to Sasebo, Japan.
