Ticonderoga passes beneath Delaware Memorial Bridge in 1955

This photograph from 1955 shows the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Ticonderoga passing beneath the Delaware Memorial Bridge headed upriver to Philadelphia. Of all the various memorials across the state, the Delaware Memorial Bridge is the most prominent. When it opened in 1951, the bridge was dedicated as a memorial to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who gave their lives during World War II. The bridge was thought to be the sixth longest suspension bridge in the world at that time. According to Wikipedia, when a second four-lane span opened in 1968, the twin bridges were proclaimed the second-longest such structure in the world.

On an average day, the bridge is estimated to carry about 80,000 vehicles one way between Delaware and New Jersey. In August 2019, on the weekend that included the 16th, 17th and 18th, 211,685 vehicles crossed the bridges one way, the greatest number of vehicles ever to cross the bridges in a three-day period. The bridge area includes a war memorial on the New Castle County end of the bridge. The breadth of those memorialized for having made the ultimate sacrifice has expanded through the decades. Wikipedia reports: “Since opening of the first bridge in 1951, annual ceremonies [except in this coronavirus year] are held at the bridge’s War Memorial on Memorial Day and Veterans Day to honor the sacrifices of American war veterans. The memorial is located in Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Delaware, and it features a reflecting pool, a statue of a soldier, and a wall containing the names of 15,000 men and women from Delaware and New Jersey who were killed in World War II, the Korean War, the War in Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf War.”

The 888-foot Ticonderoga was commissioned in 1944 and participated in several battles during World War II and the Vietnam War.