Former Congressman Henson Moore and former Baton Rouge newsman John Spain watched from the levee mid-morning Thursday as the USS Kidd slipped from its moorings in downtown Baton Rouge where it has remained a tourist attraction, a go-to spot for school fieldtrips and a reminder of U.S. Navy heroism for 42 years.
Now in its early 80s, the World War II Fletcher-class destroyer that survived a kamikaze strike while off the coast of Okinawa is slated for millions in long-overdue repairs to its leaking hull, other renovations that will bring it closer to its 1945 configuration, and also give it a new paint job.
Contractors had been working since sunrise Thursday to make final, temporary patches underwater on the hull leaks and then cut the ship free of its cradle along the city’s waterfront near the River Center.
Around 10 a.m., Capt. Bill Purvis of Thoma-Sea Marine Constructors reported to Moore, Spain and the USS Kidd …