Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board USS Mt. Whitney

U. S. Naval forces participating in the Allied attack on Libya are being led by the officers and crew of the USS Mt. Whitney, a command and control ship. The Mt. Whitney is the only ship in the history of the Navy to carry that name and it was the first U. S. combat ship to incorporate women sailors.

http://www.mtwhitney.navy.mil/site%20pages/history.aspx

Two other Owens Valley names honoring ships
Alabama - Confederate
Kearsarge - Union

A little history at:
http://digital-desert.com/alabama-hills/

The Alabama Hills were named in 1864 by southern sympathizers in Lone Pine who learned of the Confederate raider Alabama, which sank 60 Union ships during the Civil War. The federal ship USS Kearsarge sank the Alabama off of France and a local mine and the adjacent pass in the Sierra were named honor of that Union warship, which had been named after a mountain peak in New Hampshire. There have been six Naval ships named after the state of Alabama, the WWII battleship (which is now a floating attraction in Mobile), the Confederate raider which lies at the bottom of the English Channel, the Ohio class submarine, SSBN 731, among the more notable. The post WWII carrier Kearsarge (named for the Civil War Union ship), was sold for scrap in 1974. Presently there is an amphibious assault ship or LHD named the Kearsarge, again named after the famous Civil War ship that sank the CSS Alabama.