Naval Station Norfolk will send a vessel to Philadelphia for a historic celebration next month.
The USS Arlington, an amphibious transport dock, will attend the 250th anniversary celebration of the establishment of the U.S. Navy.
The event will feature a parade of ships, historical events, music concerts, fireworks displays and more. The organization behind the celebration, Homecoming 250 Navy Marine Corps, describes itself as “a group of passionate volunteers from the Delaware Valley and beyond.”
The week-long celebration will begin Oct. 9 with 10 ships sailing up the Delaware River, which flows nearly 300 miles from the Delaware Bay to New York. Its boundaries separate New Jersey and New York from Delaware and Pennsylvania.
In addition to the Arlington, the parade of ships will include two littoral combat ships, a guided-missile destroyer and two Coast Guard Cutters.
All of the visiting Navy vessels will be open for free tours from Oct. 10 to 15 in Philadelphia.
Other events include an All Veterans Reunion Picnic featuring British Royal Navy veteran and celebrity chef Robert Irvine, best known for his TV series, “Restaurant: Impossible”; an exclusive screening of Ken Burns’ documentary, “The American Revolution”; an Army-Navy Cup soccer tournament; and several other events to commemorate U.S. history.
A parade featuring over 7,000 participants will take place Oct. 13 in downtown Philadelphia. A commemoration honoring the 250th anniversary of the Navy’s founding at Independence Hall will feature addresses by Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, the uniformed head of the Navy and others.
In November, Homecoming 250 will present an additional lineup of events in Camden, New Jersey, in honor of the 250th anniversary of the Marine Corps.
The celebrations come on the heels of the Army’s 250th anniversary parade in June, which coincided with President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday. The Washington event featured armored tanks, 6,700 uniformed service members and cost $30 million.
