This is the second in a six-part, yearlong series called Disappearing Virginia in Distinction magazine. This story originally appeared in the April issue as “Ghosts on the Water.”

The Simon Lake was a vital pillar in the good working order of the United States Navy, despite never having the mystique or the munitions of the sexier classes.

The Lake, as sailors called it, was a submarine tender, providing critical repairs and supplies so the Navy’s silent service could remain at sea indefinitely. Often deployed in places like Scotland, Spain and Italy, the ship and its crews earned numerous commendations.

USS Simon Lake. Photo by Keith Lanpher

The Lake completed 36 years of meritorious service, but in 1999, the Navy decommissioned the ship and eventually sent it to a spot some 25 miles northwest of Norfolk, where it could rest in the company of other venerable old vessels whose best days were behind them.

This is the James River Reserve Fleet, one of three idle armadas maintained by the United States Maritime Administration. Known as the National Defense Reserve Fleet, these merchant and naval vessels are a floating insurance policy, called on in times of crises ranging from conflict such as the Persian Gulf War, to natural disaster, as with Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Like its sister flotillas, the James River Reserve Fleet is a timeline, historic by virtue of its members. The ships sit silently, the sleeping hulls dormant, though very much alive in the memories of the people who once served aboard them.

Photo by Keith Lanpher

But just as old sailors eventually pass into oblivion, so too do the vessels that carried them. There are only 10 ships left in the James fleet, a fraction of the former total. A headline in a 1921 article in The New York Herald reads “500 Idle Ships on James River.” The story goes on to say, “Skeleton crews are employed and the only work they are required to do is keep the decks and fixtures clear and stand watches.”

Known locally as the Ghost Fleet, it sits tucked away, almost out of sight. You can see it from some out-of-the-way fishing holes or by turning a certain direction atop one of Busch Gardens’ roller coasters.

Boaters pass the fleet on the James as it turns almost due north, but visitation is forbidden. The Maritime Administration runs off watercraft venturing too close. Truth is, the fleet has long been a headache and a controversy, a threat to safe navigation, not to mention the environment. As time passed, the skeleton crews departed, and so too did the ships, towed down the James to meet a fate that most often meant their demise.

Photo by Keith Lanpher

The Guadalcanal – an amphibious assault ship that once fished astronauts from the Atlantic Ocean and seized an enemy vessel on the high seas – was sacrificed for live-fire target practice, sent to the bottom of the sea off the Virginia Capes in May 1995.

Most of the Ghost Fleet’s ships weren’t afforded so spectacular a send-off. The Sturgis began its career during World War II as a Liberty ship. In the 1950s, as the atomic energy age loomed large, military officials replaced its engines with a nuclear reactor.

The Sturgis’ second life was unique among American vessels – a nuclear barge that supplied energy in the Panama Canal Zone during the Vietnam War. But in the 1970s, having become too much to maintain, it joined the Ghost Fleet, where it sat for 35 years until being towed to Galveston, Texas, for scrap.

That’s a sad but understandable fate, said Art Beltrone, a military historian from Keswick, Virginia. The effort and expense needed to maintain a single ship is daunting. Still, the men and women with some connection to these vessels mourn the loss.

Beltrone and his wife, Lee, started the Vietnam Graffiti Project after he gained access to the General Nelson M. Walker, a troop transport used from World War II through the Vietnam War. There in the dark passages below deck, he discovered canvas bunks with scrawled musings of the war-bound soldiers, messages of hope, love and fear. “It’s an unusual way to tell the story of young Americans going off to war,” he said.

The Beltrones recovered many of the canvases and created a traveling exhibit, which has been shown in more than 50 venues in the past 10 years. These recovered artifacts resonate with the public like few other war artifacts could, Art Beltrone said. “This was the most honest expression of these people when they wrote it,” he said.

Photo by Keith Lanpher

Another of the Ghost Fleet’s erstwhile residents was saved by its own distinction. The Savannah was the first of only four nuclear-powered cargo ships ever built. Its maiden port of call was Norfolk, and over a nine-year career it visited 45 ports, carrying as many as 60 passengers along with the freight.

The Savannah, which spent 14 years in the James River Ghost Fleet, is today moored in Baltimore, still the property of the Maritime Administration but with a cadre of nuclear and maritime devotees hoping to turn it into a museum ship.

Still, the Savannah is an exception; all but four of the ships that remain in the James River’s Ghost Fleet are marked for disposal, including the Simon Lake. Such a fate will disappoint the ship’s large and active following, which remains in touch mostly online.

Anthony Aakre, who lives in Florida, served aboard the Lake in its final active days, as the process of decommissioning took place. Like his shipmates, he has a lot of fond memories. “We are a tight community because we were a unique community,” he says, a bit different than the air, surface and subsurface groups.

The sub tenders were among the first to integrate the sexes. Sailors called the Lake “The Love Boat” when officers weren’t listening; at least 10 people in its Facebook community met spouses aboard the ship.

People make museums out of renowned vessels – battleships and patrol boats, for instance – Aakre notes. But not sub tenders. They’re just not deep enough in collective appreciation. But they were vital nonetheless.

The Navy has just two sub tenders left; the need for them has waned with advancements in ship technology. So when tugs tow the Simon Lake from the Ghost Fleet on the James, these ships will be that much closer to existing only in the memories of the people who gave them life.

Photo by Keith Lanpher