Bringing the Rogers Home-Day 1

Ward Brewer and his team from Beauchamp Tower Corporation (Operation Enduring Service web site, blog) have arrived in Mexico City on the first leg of their trip to bring home the DD-574 John Rogers/E-01 Cuitlahuac (photos from NavSource Online), the longest-serving of the World War II-era Fletcher-class destroyers.

AA Action view from CVA-8 Hornet 14 May 1945 of kamikaze exploding over John Rogers (John Chiquoine via NavSource Online)

They will push on today to Lázaro Cárdenas, a Mexican port city in the state of Michoacán, where the John Rogers is currently berthed.

The blogging community is very lucky to have an exclusive on the repatriation of the Rogers, with milblogger John Donovan reporting in on Argghh!, and his first post form Mexico is already online.

Read it here.

I'll hope to have some additional commentary posted here on Confederate Yankee, and my brother phin will be chiming in as well, which isn't necessarily a good thing. He promised to reveal "deep, dark secrets" about me to Ward and John in exchange for the recipe for the Avocado Ranch dressing they use to lace the fish tacos he got addicted to on his business trips to the southwest.

Whatever the charge, I maintain my innocence, and will remind my dear brother that that particular street runs both ways.

Update: John has another post here, and the first pic.