{"id":69071,"date":"2022-01-18T23:18:22","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T23:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2022\/01\/18\/uss-kitty-hawk-headed-for-the-scrapyard\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:55:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:55:50","slug":"uss-kitty-hawk-headed-for-the-scrapyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/news\/your-military\/2022\/01\/18\/uss-kitty-hawk-headed-for-the-scrapyard\/","title":{"rendered":"USS Kitty Hawk headed for the scrapyard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kitty Hawk<\/a>, the last oil-fired Navy aircraft carrier, departed Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton, Washington, Saturday for its final transit to a ship-breaking facility in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kitty Hawk served for 48 years before it was decommissioned in 2009, earning the nickname \u201cShitty Kitty\u201d<\/a> among some crew members assigned to its aged, non-nuclear-powered hull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It sat at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard since retirement and was moved into dry dock for a time early last year to remove marine growth from the hull before it began its trip south.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kitty Hawk was reportedly sold to the Texas ship-breaking company for a cent and will have to go all the way down to the tip of South America and back up because it is too big to get through the Panama Canal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Named after the North Carolina site where the Wright brothers took flight in their \u201cheavier-than-air machine\u201d in 1903, Kitty Hawk was hailed as the first in a \u201cnew and greatly improved line of carriers\u201d by then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Arleigh Burke in 1961, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kitty Hawk was the first carrier of its class, and like the ongoing travails now besieging the first-of-its-class carrier Gerald R. Ford, Kitty Hawk had its own problems back in the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then-Navy Secretary John Connally noted in the summer of 1961 that \u201ca large number of discrepancies and deficiencies have shown up\u201d on the carrier due to shoddy workmanship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Kitty Hawk pressed on and steamed proudly around the globe, providing a home and a workplace for countless sailors along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kitty Hawk conducted six tours in Vietnam and was the first carrier to be awarded a Presidential Unit Citation, according to the Navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It spent the last decade of its service life forward-deployed to Yokosuka Naval Base, Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while Kitty Hawk\u2019s best days are now in the past, countless sailors will remember their time onboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I got onboard in \u201806, there were plenty of reasons it was called \u2018the shitty kitty,\u2019\u201d a Reddit user<\/a> wrote a few years ago. \u201cEverything was old and outdated. We took on more fuel for the boat and planes than any other ship in the fleet, we were unrepping every 3 days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDecommissioning her was still kinda sad though,\u201d the user added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI spent 1988-90 assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk while she was undergoing restoration in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard,\u201d one Twitter user<\/a> wrote. \u201cEven then you could feel the history. Although depressing, I wish fair winds and following seas on her final voyage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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USS Kitty Hawk today started her final voyage from Bremerton to a scrapyard in Texas. Built for $264 million in 1961 ($2.5 billion in 2021), the Kitty Hawk was sold to the scrap company for the bargain price of 1 cent. For another penny, the company also got USS John F. Kennedy. pic.twitter.com\/4gpEBcY56l<\/a><\/p>— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) January 15, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>