Question: When a ship is de-commissioned, where are the ship's valuables sent?
Answer: (provided by William Murray, Captain, USN, Ret.) - Sometimes a city, the ship's
namesake, claims the bell and silver, otherwise the Navy has storage space for each de-commissioned ship and stores
various keepsake items there. At least that is the way it used to be. When I was in the Pentagon, the Navy had
a large building at the Washington Gun Factory, at the Navy Yard, where all valuable items were stored. A friend
of mine was the officer-in-charge, and he worried continuously that someone would steal the items. Don't know what
the situation is now but suspect it hasn't changed.