The USS Cole triumphantly cruised into New York for Fleet Week on Wednesday — staging a symbolic victory over terrorism on the same day the new Sept. 11 museum opened to the public.
The guided-missile destroyer was the target of a deadly attack in 2000 that marked the rise of al Qaeda less than a year before the terror group toppled the Twin Towers.
It will be open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Memorial Day at the former Navy Home Port off Front Street in Staten Island. Admission is free.
"All of the sailors are happy that we are here just in time for the 9/11 memorial," said US Navy Ensign Hannah Taylor, 22.
"Sailors and New Yorkers alike will be able to pay tribute to the people of New York and everyone who died in the 9/11 attacks.
"Just having the opportunity to showcase our unity as one nation is a blessing," she added.
Taylor, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, said a "key attraction" is the ship's Hall of Heroes, where 17 gold stars on the mess deck commemorate the sailors who were killed in the Oct. 12, 2000, terror attack.
"I think the people of New York will want to see really anything and everything on the ship, but especially the Hall of Heroes," she said. "They can get to know a little about the sailors who gave their lives protecting us all."
The port side damage to the guided missile destroyer USS Cole is pictured after a bomb attack during a refueling operation in the port of Aden in this October 12, 2000.Photo: Reuters
The Cole — named after Marine Sgt. Darrell Cole, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for World War II heroics — was attacked while docked for refueling in Aden Harbor, Yemen.
Two suicide bombers in a motorboat pulled up alongside the ship and stood at attention before detonating a load of explosives that ripped a 40-by-60-foot hole in its hull, killing 17 sailors and wounding 39 others.
The following year, a video showed Osama bin Laden reciting a poem that mentioned the murderous attack, saying, "In Aden, the young man stood up for holy war and destroyed a destroyer feared by the powerful.''
Another video circulated that year also showed al Qaeda trainees in Afghanistan singing, "We thank God for granting us victory the day we destroyed Cole in the sea."
Sailors line the decks of the destroyer USS Cole as it glides past One World Trade Center, Wednesday, May 21.Photo: AP
But the ship had actually been brought back to the United States aboard the Norwegian heavy-lift ship SS Blue Marlin for an FBI investigation and repairs.
The alleged mastermind behind the attack, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, is currently awaiting trial before a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
The Cole was recommissioned in Pascagoula, Miss., in April 2002, and redeployed in November 2003.
Capt. Bill Edge said visitors will follow a marked path through the ship. Sailors will be stationed at points on the tour to explain features of the warship, he said.
Two other military vessels, the Navy's USS McFaul destroyer and the US Coast Guard's buoy tender Katherine Walker — known as the "Keeper of New York Harbor" — will also be open for tours.
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