After decommissioning, carrier’s eventual fate unknown (USS Kitty Hawk)

Stars and Stripes ^ | 5/25/08 | Teri Weaver and Allison Batdorff

[Dawnsblood]

Nobody likes moving day — the packing, the lifting and, at day’s end, the echoing of an empty home.

Now, imagine emptying out an 80,000-ton ship with 2,550 compartments. It makes for an awful lot of refrigerators to unplug.

The crew aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk already is preparing for such a historic move, one that will end the ship’s 47-year career in the U.S. Navy.

As the carrier sails for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, sailors will begin going through 19-point checklists to make sure the proper items get unplugged, collected and stored before the ship drops anchor in July at Bremerton, Wash. About 430 crewmembers will stay with the ship over the following few months, before the official decommissioning in January, the Navy said last week.

From there, the carrier’s eventual fate remains unknown.

A group in North Carolina wants it for a museum, homage to CV-63’s namesake location in the state. Congress this month talked about keeping the Kitty Hawk in ready-reserve status during the next few years.

After decommissioning, the carrier will be assigned to the Navy’s inactive ship inventory. The secretary of the Navy will make the "ultimate decision on disposition," Navy Lt. Clay Doss said in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes.

[GitmoSailor]

Thanks a whole bunch!!!!!.........

Thank the good Lord you didn't forget me!!!!!!.........Hope you are doing OK!!!......

[cva66snipe]

On the first cruise around the Horn (1961) I worked in Ready-Room five near the lower escalator landing. I remember riding it up to the 04 level on my daily trips (in person)to main-com and CAG-11 to pick up messages that were in written form.

Seems KH Class carriers had some unique first LOL. KH had an escelator? We were the only carrier to have a sonar dome. Sleeping in A&R berthing Aft 3rd deck below the port & starboard chow lines we could hear it pinging all night.

[JSteff]

“Old ships are old ships. There's a point where it's not worth it to repair or upgrade them.”

Yeah. And I think the Oriskany got a great final resting place. At sea, not in a scrap yard or sold to the Chinese for scrap.

[cva66snipe]

Yeah. And I think the Oriskany got a great final resting place. At sea, not in a scrap yard or sold to the Chinese for scrap.

Due to EPA rules the Navy can't find any U.S. companies willing to scrap a carrier. The MMR's are loaded with asbestos, oils, grease, and likely PCB's as well. There will be more sinkings coming pretty soon likely.

[ccmay]

The ships and aircraft in that photograph could deliver quite a bit more explosive power than was detonated in the whole of WWII.

-ccm

[GATOR NAVY]

I did two decommissionings. The first was a strip-down and seal-up to put the ship in mothballs. The second was a hot turnover to a foreign navy (Chile). Give me the second kind any day of the week.

[GATOR NAVY]

Kitty Hawk did six tours in Vietnam between 1963 and 1976 and was the first aircraft carrier ever to be awarded a Presidential Unit Citation. The award, the unit equivalent of the Navy Cross, was presented by President Lyndon B. Johnson on Dec. 20, 1968, to the ship and Carrier Air Wing 11.

I'm 95% certain the WWII Enterprise received a PUC.

[cva66snipe]

A hot turn over of a CV would be about impossible. These are 1200 PSI steamers. It takes a qualified crew to run them and to qualify such a crew would take years. Besides who's gonna pay for the mandatory major overhaul? KH is wore out literally. 50 years is a lot to ask of a Super Heated High Pressure Steamer and Kitty Hawk made the trip. Anything beyond that and your asking for some major human causalities without completely rebuilding the entire steam plants.

[GATOR NAVY]

Oh I agree completely. I seem to remember that even the Knox class FFs were giving foreign navies hell with their 1200 PSI plants and they're a lot smaller than a CV. I was just reminiscing that from a sailor's POV, the mothball decomm sucks.

[Vroomfondel]

ping

[BroJoeK]

"The ships and aircraft in that photograph could deliver quite a bit more explosive power than was detonated in the whole of WWII. "

Sure, if nuclear armed.

If conventionally armed, I would still argue they could deliver as much destructive power on actual military targets as ever reached its targets in W.W.II -- since bombing "accuracy" in those days was measured in miles!

[UpToHere]

Cat Officers ping

[cva66snipe]

Oh I agree completely. I seem to remember that even the Knox class FFs were giving foreign navies hell with their 1200 PSI plants and they're a lot smaller than a CV. I was just reminiscing that from a sailor's POV, the mothball decomm sucks.

Having them sink one you're trying to get museum status for does too. The Navy's done some weird choices in the pate decade or so. Amazing though KH was the oldest of her class and JFK and out lasted them all. Only Enterprise remains from that era and it really should be taken out soon.

[magslinger]

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