USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)

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Rear view of the Kitty Hawk, 2006
Rear view of the Kitty Hawk , 2006
Overview
Order October 1, 1955
Keel laying December 27, 1956
Launch May 21, 1960
1. Period of service flag
Commissioning April 29, 1961
Decommissioning January 31, 2009
Technical specifications
displacement

80,800 ts

length

323.8 m deck, 302 m waterline

width

76.8 m deck, 39.36 m waterline

Draft

10.9 m

crew

3150 nautical + 2480 flight

drive

8 steam boilers, 4 steam turbines, 280,000  shp (210 MW)

speed

> 30 knots

Armament

At the beginning Terrier , later Sea Sparrow and RAM guided weapons, Phalanx CIWS cannons

Aircraft

Up to 85

The USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) (to 1973 CVA-63 ) is an aircraft carrier of the US Navy and type of ship Kitty Hawk class . It is named after the town of Kitty Hawk , North Carolina , where the Wright brothers made their first powered flight .

The ship entered service in 1961 and participated in the Vietnam War from 1966. In the 1970s and 1980s, the aircraft carrier drove u. a. during the Ogaden War , the hostage-taking of Tehran and the Iran-Iraq war, also in the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. During the Gulf War in 1990, the Kitty Hawk was in the shipyard, so it was not used. In 1998, she was the only outworked carriers of the US Navy in Yokosuka ( Japan stationed). From there it was used during the 2003 Iraq War.

The Kitty Hawk was the last remaining US oil-fired carrier and was decommissioned on January 31, 2009 after more than 47 years.

technology

Airplanes on the flight deck of the Kitty Hawk , 1980

The Kitty Hawk class consists of three essentially identical aircraft carriers, a fourth unit, the John F. Kennedy , due to modifications made, is partially a class of its own. The Kitty Hawk is 323 meters long and the flight deck is over 75 meters wide. The displacement of the ship when fully loaded is over 80,000 standard  tonnes (ts).

In contrast to the later carriers of the US Navy, which are powered by nuclear reactors , Kitty Hawk and her sisters were the last carriers to have a conventional drive. Eight oil-fired boilers generated steam for four geared turbines that powered the four shafts of the girder. The drive power was around 280,000 shaft horsepower , the maximum possible speed over 30 knots.

At the beginning of its service life, the Kitty Hawk had two guided rocket launchers for RIM-2 Terriers at the stern . These weapons could attack mid-range air targets. In 1975 the Terriers were disarmed, instead three starters for RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and in 1980 three Phalanx CIWS cannons were equipped as air defense systems . In 2001 a starter for the RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile was added, which replaced a Sea Sparrow and a Phalanx on a platform at the bow. A total of 85 aircraft could be carried in the hangar directly below the flight deck and on the deck itself; these were organized in a Carrier Air Wing and covered all the necessary roles from reconnaissance, air defense and ground attacks to rescue missions and transport flights.

Defense against attacking aircraft, ships or submarines offered the carrier the mandatory aircraft carrier combat group , which consisted of several destroyers and cruisers as well as nuclear submarines . Together with the air surveillance aircraft, this formed a protective screen around the carrier and could also fire cruise missiles at enemy land targets.

Name and classification

The aircraft carrier was named after the city of Kitty Hawk , North Carolina . The town with just 3000 inhabitants is located on the Atlantic coast on Bodie Island on the windy Outer Banks . There the Wright brothers succeeded in 1903 with the Wright Flyer, the first motorized flight. As early as World War II , the Navy named an aircraft transport ship, the USS Kitty Hawk (AKV-1) , after the city.

When it was commissioned, the Kitty Hawk was given the identification CVA-63. The 63 is a sequential identification number for all fleet aircraft carriers in the US Navy, CVA identifies the type of ship. CV is the classic identifier for aircraft carriers, it stands for cruiser volplane , such as cruisers with a flight deck. The A for attack indicated the carrier squadron's focus on land attacks. 1973 with the omission of the last on ASW specialized carriers of Essex class , the attack squadron also received ASW aircraft. Such a mixed configuration was first implemented on the Kitty Hawk . The A has been dropped to indicate the wide range of missions that can now be carried out . In 1975 the A was then deleted from the IDs across the fleet.

history

USS Kitty Hawk 2006, three years before retirement

Planning and construction

Construction of the first beam of the new class was approved on October 1, 1955. The contract was awarded to New York Shipbuilding on the east bank of the Delaware River near Camden , New Jersey . The keel of the CVA-63 was laid there on December 27, 1956. After around three and a half years of construction, the carrier was launched on March 21, 1960 and was christened. The ship's godmother was Mrs. Camilla F. McElroy, wife of the former US Secretary of Defense Neil H. McElroy . After test drives, the Kitty Hawk was officially put into service on April 21, 1961. The keynote speaker at the ceremony at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard was Admiral Hyman Rickover , then Chief of Naval Operations (CNO). Further test drives from Naval Station Norfolk followed .

At that time, many media were already reporting on problems caused by negligence in the shipyard work. In June 1961, the then United States Secretary of the Navy , John Connally , confirmed this: "A large number of discrepancies and deficiencies have shown up in the Kitty Hawk." He announced that this would lead to further investigation, but said also that problems with type ships of new classes are not uncommon. In addition, the Navy changed the construction plans after the carrier had already been laid down, which had led to delays. In late 1961, the Navy and New York Ship reached an agreement; the Navy paid the shipyard $ 178 million to build the carrier. The total price including all on-board equipment but excluding the aircraft was $ 265.2 million.

First years

On July 17, 1961, the first aircraft landed on the flight deck of the new carrier, a Grumman C-1A Trader . On the Kitty Hawk , the squadron was Carrier Air Wing Eleven (CVW 11) stationed. After further test drives in the Atlantic, the Kitty Hawk left Norfolk on August 11 with destination San Diego, where it was to be stationed. In October she circled Cape Horn and entered the Pacific, on November 1, 1961 the porter reached San Diego. On this voyage, the Kitty Hawk made initial visits to many ports in Central and South America; by the time she had reached her destination, more than 1,000 aircraft landings had already been recorded on deck.

The Kitty Hawk alongside the Topeka during the 1961 performance demonstration

In November, the then Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) George Whelan Anderson, Jr. came on board, the naval command was shown the capabilities of the new carrier for the first time. The Kitty Hawk led her combat group Topeka , Henry B. Wilson , Preble and Blueback in anti -submarine exercises. Then she went to the shipyard. In the San Francisco Naval Shipyard , errors found on the first trips have been fixed. In May 1962 the Kitty Hawk undocked .

In the fall of 1962, the Kitty Hawk began her first mission. In October, it replaced the Midway in the Western Pacific. On October 13, the carrier became the flagship of the Seventh Fleet when Admiral Thomas H. Moorer took over the fleet command on the carrier. In the course of the voyage, several foreign guests attended demonstrations, later exercises in front of Taiwan and Japan as well as port visits to several Asian ports were scheduled. In April 1963 the Kitty Hawk returned to San Diego. In June, US President John F. Kennedy visited the carrier off the coast of California with Secretary of the Navy Fred Korth and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . A force with over 30 warships demonstrated, among other things, their ability to control sea routes, as the US had done during the Cuban Missile Crisis the previous year .

A U-2 on Kitty Hawk's sister ship America

In August 1963, Project Whale Tale was launched on the Kitty Hawk . Since the CIA had problems stationing its Lockheed U-2A Dragon Lady spy aircraft close enough to potential target areas, they should be checked for carrier suitability. On August 5, a U-2 took off for the first time from the deck of the Kitty Hawk . While the take-off succeeded without catapult support, test pilot Bob Schumacher was unable to land on the carrier again. After a few more attempts of U-2 modified by Kelly Johnson on other carriers, the project was canceled. Aircraft carriers would have taken too long to reach the target areas. 

In October 1963, the carrier made its second voyage to the Western Pacific. He took part in two amphibious warfare exercises with the armed forces of Taiwan around the turn of the year . From May 1964, Kitty Hawk planes flew reconnaissance missions over Laos, where the Pathet Lao had begun bringing communist fighters into the country via the Ho Chi Minh Trail . Two Kitty Hawk aircraft were shot down. While the pilot of the second aircraft was rescued on June 7th just one day after it was shot down, Charles F. Klusmann, shot down on June 6th, was captured by the rebels and remained in captivity for almost three months. He was the first US naval aviator to be captured in the beginning of the Vietnam conflict. Both pilots were flown out of the country by Air America . In July 1964 the Kitty Hawk returned to America.

From September 1964 to January 1965, the carrier was overhauled for $ 14 million in the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard . Subsequently, parts of the Disney film Lt. Robin Crusoe, USN , shot on the Kitty Hawk . In October she left San Diego and began the first voyage in the Vietnam War with a stopover in Pearl Harbor , Hawaii . In addition to Grumman E-2 Hawkeye surveillance aircraft , there were mainly North American A-5 Vigilante and Grumman A-6 Intruder bombers and later also Vought A-7 Corsair II bombers . The McDonnell F-4B Phantom II and Douglas A-4 Skyhawk provided fighter protection .

Vietnam War

Two Grumman A-6s of the Kitty Hawk in 1966 over the South China Sea

The Kitty Hawk reached the Vietnamese coast via Subic Bay in the Philippines in late November 1965. On November 26th, Kitty Hawk aircraft took off for the first time to attack targets in North Vietnam. The carrier took up position at Yankee Station in the Gulf of Tonkin , from which attacks by three US Navy aircraft carriers started regularly. On the first day, 90 take-offs took place as part of Operation Rolling Thunder ; the planes dropped 140 tons of bombs. On December 2, the carrier lost its first aircraft in the war, and both pilots died. Four days later, a fire broke out in engine room 3, killing two crew members and injuring 29 others. The crew managed to extinguish the fire after three hours; the carrier remained fully operational. Shortly before Christmas, associations of up to 110 aircraft attacked the Uong Bi power plants from three aircraft carriers ; a total of four machines of the squadrons of the Kitty Hawk were shot down. The Kitty Hawk was subsequently replaced and spent the turn of the year in Japan in port. In mid-January the porter was off the coast again. As part of Operation Steel Tiger , the infiltration of North Vietnamese forces into the south via Laos was to be prevented. In February, the Kitty Hawk aircraft again flew more Rolling Thunder missions. Bad weather hindered the operations from the Yankee and Dixie stations in the following weeks . In mid-March the Kitty Hawk was sent to Subic Bay, where she lay for two weeks. On March 31st she was back on Dixie Station, then later on Yankee. During the operations started from there, the aircraft dropped around 100 tons of bombs per day on North Vietnamese positions and cities. In April, the ship lost nine aircraft due to fire or technical failure. The next quiet period followed on April 30th in Subic Bay; on May 8, the ship reached Yankee Station again. By May 23, the planes dropped around 110 tons of bombs a day on North Vietnam. After that, the Kitty Hawk ended her first war mission, in which over 10,000 flights had started from the deck of the carrier. The crew received a Navy Unit Commendation for their mission . The Kitty Hawk arrived in San Diego in June for maintenance work. On June 25, Lt. Robin Crusoe, USN , premiered in the porter's hangar.

In November 1966 the Kitty Hawk was off Vietnam for the second time. Up until June 1967, the carrier spent a total of 117 days on Yankee Station. In over 10,000 operational and support flights, the aircraft dropped over 11,000 tons of bombs on North Vietnamese targets. A total of 38 industrial targets were attacked during Rolling Thunder , including power plants and oil processing plants at Hải Phòng and Bắc Giang , arms factories at Thanh Hóa and Van Dien, and heavy industry at Thái Nguyên . There were also 15 missions in which rivers in North Vietnam were mined in order to further weaken the country's industry. The pilots of the Kitty Hawk achieved four aerial victories over North Vietnamese pilots. On December 20, 1966, two McDonnell F-4B Phantom II shot down two Antonov An-2s , on April 24, 1967 two F-4Bs shot down two North Vietnamese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17s . During this period, North Vietnamese positions also shot down ten Kitty Hawk aircraft . On the way back to San Diego, the porter picked up fuel from the plate tanker on June 16 . The two ships collided. While the Kitty Hawk sustained almost no damage, the plate was badly damaged and had to return to Hawaii. The Kitty Hawk was then docked in the Long Beach Naval Shipyard for maintenance work until October .

Bombs stored on the flight deck of the Kitty Hawk off Vietnam in 1970

By the end of 1967 the Kitty Hawk was back in Subic Bay. While the ship was in port, on December 18, a fire broke out in a room used as a tire store, which could only be extinguished after nine hours. Around 125 seamen were slightly injured by the heavy smoke development, but they were all able to stay on board. There was no damage, so the Kitty Hawk was able to move to Vietnam as planned. There the carrier's aircraft dropped over 16,000 tons of bombs in over 10,000 flights by June 1968. In early 1968 the planes bombed NVA troops during the Battle of Khe Sanh . The second half of the mission took place during the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive . The jets attacked a total of 185 larger target areas, including industrial areas, airfields and communication facilities. As a result of Lyndon B. Johnson's instruction to limit the bombing to areas north of the 20th parallel, the North Vietnamese supply lines in the southern tip of North Vietnam in particular were attacked from March onwards.

On New Year's Eve 1968 the Kitty Hawk was already moving back to Vietnam, and the first mission began at the end of January 1969. This voyage lasted for the Kitty Hawk until September 1969, when she docked in the Puget Sound NSY in October, where an overhaul was carried out. In November the Kitty Hawk began its fifth transfer to Vietnam. The attacks have now taken place over Laos and South Vietnam. The planes supported the ultimately unsuccessful South Vietnamese attempt to advance into Laos in Operation Lam Son 719 . By June 1971, the carrier's aircraft dropped more than 22,000 tons of bombs.

After an overhaul in the home port, the actual last Vietnam War voyage of the carrier took place from February 1972 to November 1972. The Nguyễn Huệ Offensive (also known as the Easter Offensive) by the North Vietnamese troops caught the United States unprepared. The Kitty Hawk was called to Yankee Station early from Subic Bay in March . The main targets of the aircraft's air strikes were anti-aircraft missile positions in order to allow the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress of the US Air Force a safe approach to their targets as part of Operation Linebacker . These attacks further weakened North Vietnamese industry, and aircraft from the Kitty Hawk and three other aircraft carriers mined the ports of Hải Phong, Cẩm Phả and other industrial centers in northern Vietnam in May to cut off the state from sea supplies. Over 26,000 tons of bombs were dropped during the entire journey. In May, two Phantoms of the Kitty Hawk also shot down two North Vietnamese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s . Operation Linebacker ended in October and the Kitty Hawk was then withdrawn to Subic Bay.

Originally, she was supposed to start her way home from there after a short period in port. Instead, however, she was sent to Vietnam one more time. Black and white sailors became increasingly isolated from each other at this time. This process was also facilitated by separate dormitories on board the Kitty Hawk . Shortly after the departure, on October 12, race riots began on the Kitty Hawk after a black sailor was specifically asked about his involvement in a bar fight in Subic Bay and this sailor immediately attacked two white cooks. Thereupon a dispute broke out in one of the trade fairs, which the Executive Officer (XO), one of five black officers on board, was able to arbitrate after an hour. In the hangar deck, however, where groups of black sailors armed themselves with tools, the confrontation continued. There tried the white Commanding Officer of the Kitty Hawk to settle. However, shortly afterwards, small groups of black sailors passed through the ship indiscriminately injuring white sailors. Ultimately, the XO arbitrated here too, but later said he had the feeling he would have been killed by the groups when he spoke to them had he not been black as well. The result of the unrest were 40 white and six black people injured, 21 blacks were later charged. After the unrest settled, the Kitty Hawk stayed on the station and did not return to San Diego until late November.

Overall, the Kitty Hawk moved six times between 1965 and 1972 in the Vietnam War. The carrier spent around four years on mission trips as part of the war.

Post-war years

Rear view of the 1977 Kitty Hawk off the coast of California

In January 1973, the Kitty Hawk docked in the San Francisco NSY for overhaul work. During this, among other things, stronger aircraft catapults and gas jet deflectors (English Jet Blast Deflectors) were installed in order to be able to start larger and heavy aircraft such as the Grumman F-14 Tomcat . Then in September she took part in the multinational exercise RIMPAC in the waters off Hawaii. In November, the ship laid in peace for the first time since 1964, the destination was the Indian Ocean. As on many voyages in Southeast Asia, Soviet scouts and Tupolev Tu-95 bombers shadowed the Kitty Hawk over long distances. On December 11th, a fire broke out in engine room number one, in which five sailors died. In 1974, unaffected by the fire, the porter entered the Arabian Sea and stayed there for a few weeks.

In April 1975, the Kitty Hawk took part in exercises off the Californian coast and in May moved again to the Western Pacific, for the first time with Tomcats on board. Especially in the Sea of ​​Japan , the Kitty Hawk was again shadowed by Soviet bombers and ships. In early 1976 a major overhaul followed in the Puget Sound NSY. Among other things, necessary maintenance facilities for the use of the F-14 Tomcat were created. In addition, the Terrier guided missiles were exchanged for Sea Sparrow . The cost of the overhaul was $ 100 million. The Kitty Hawk did not go back into service until October 1977 . At the beginning of 1978 the ship was in Subic Bay when she was on readiness due to the Ogad War in Somalia and waited in front of Singapore until March 1978 to see if American citizens could be evacuated. Ultimately, however, she was not sent to the Indian Ocean ; in May the ship returned to the US coast.

A year later, the Kitty Hawk moved east again and took part in exercises with the Japanese Navy off Okinawa . On this trip the CVW 11 was replaced for the first time by another squadron. The Carrier Air Wing Fifteen (CVW 15) came on board. After the assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee on October 16, 1979, the Kitty Hawk was sent off Korea's coast to prevent North Korea from military action against the south during the turbulent times. In November she moved to Subic Bay and was supposed to return to San Diego after a stay there. However, after tensions increased in Iran following the hostage-taking of Tehran , the Kitty Hawk moved to the Arabian Sea, where it arrived on December 4th and stayed until January 1980. She was replaced by Nimitz and reached San Diego in February. After another transfer to the Arabian Sea in 1981, the Kitty Hawk went to the Puget Sound NSY for overhaul in early 1982. In January 1983, the test drives were over after the overhaul. That day there was also a near collision with the Canadian destroyer Yukon . Ultimately, however, only the antennas of the two ships touched. Also in January, McDonnell Douglas F / A-18 Hornets operated from the deck of the Kitty Hawk for the first time .

The Soviet submarine after the collision while descending

At the beginning of 1984, the Kitty Hawk was set off again for the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans. Carrier Air Wing Two (CVW 2) was stationed on board for this trip . On 12 March 1984, the carrier went through during an exercise Korea Strait . Around 10 p.m. local time, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-314 of the Project 671 type appeared directly in front of the Kitty Hawk . The ships collided; Subsequently, the crew of the Kitty Hawk made out the tower of the submarine, which was unlit and moved away from the carrier. The submarine did not seem to have suffered any damage. The Kitty Hawk signaled the nearby Soviet Kara- class cruiser Petropavlovsk , but it did not respond. According to later statements by the US Navy, the submarine had been identified and simulated sunk more than 15 times in the previous days. James D. Watkins , then CNO, saw the guilt on the Soviet side and was puzzled by the captain's problems in keeping enough distance from the Kitty Hawk . After this incident , the Kitty Hawk stayed in the Arabian Sea until June , where the Iran-Iraq war and in this the "tanker war" raged. Also in mid to late 1985, the Kitty Hawk relocated to a voyage in the Indian Ocean. Subsequently, CVW 2 was replaced by Carrier Air Wing Nine (CVW 9).

Combat missions in golf

The Kitty Hawk on her only voyage in European waters off Cannes in 1987

At the beginning of 1987 the carrier left San Diego and drove on an incomplete circumnavigation of the world through the Pacific and through the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. In the Arabian Sea, three months of flight operations followed as part of the tanker war . On May 17, the carrier crossed the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, but remained in readiness in the eastern Mediterranean after the Iraqi attack on the frigate Stark until the Nimitz had crossed the Suez Canal towards the Gulf and replaced the Kitty Hawk . In November she reached the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. There, the Kitty Hawk went through a Service Life Extension Program , an extensive overhaul to extend the service life of the carrier. The shipyard stay lasted until mid-1991 and cost around 800 million US dollars. The ship was thus in the shipyard throughout Operation Desert Storm . Among other things, the propulsion systems and the hull, the radar systems and the accommodations on board were modernized.

In December 1991 the carrier reached San Diego again. In the summer of 1992, the Kitty Hawk took part in the RIMPAC maneuver for the second time . On August 1, she was selected as the Pacific Fleet's standby aircraft carrier and put on a 96-hour standby. In November, the Kitty Hawk , now again with the CVW 15 squadron, was relocated to the Indian Ocean to cross Somalia as the flagship of Operation Restore Hope . While American planes flew over Somalia over the Christmas period to provide close air support to UN ground troops , Iraqi fighter planes simultaneously violated the southern no-fly zone over their country. The Kitty Hawk was immediately ordered with only one escort, the Leahy , to the Persian Gulf, where she arrived on December 31, 1992 after a four-day high-speed voyage. There she took off air surveillance aircraft on New Year's Day as part of Operation Southern Watch . Just two weeks later, 110 Allied warplanes, 35 of them from the Kitty Hawk , flew a massive operation against Iraqi anti-aircraft missile sites and ground control stations. In March the Kitty Hawk left the Gulf and was replaced by the Nimitz . Maintenance work then took place. In early 1994, parts of the Hollywood film The Cartel with the Kitty Hawk were shot.

During the mission in mid to late 1994, the Kitty Hawk moved to the Western Pacific. During the aftermath of Kim Il-sung's death , the aircraft carrier was on standby off the Korean peninsula, performing exercises with Japanese and South Korean naval forces. There, Western forces, led by the Kitty Hawk, succeeded for the first time in maintaining acoustic contact with a Chinese Han- class submarine and a Russian Oscar II- class submarine . After modernization work started again in 1995, the Kitty Hawk took part in the RIMPAC exercise in the summer of 1996 . Between November 1996 and March 1997, the ship sailed in the Persian Gulf, where she helped enforce UN sanctions against Iraq, including inspecting cargo ships entering or coming from Iraqi ports. Aircraft Kitty Hawk flew over 1,000 missions to monitor the no-fly zones. The CVW 11 squadron was stationed for this trip. This was followed by a two-part overhaul (Complex Overhaul) in San Diego and the Puget Sound NSY. Among other things, all four propellers and shafts were repaired and the four oars replaced by those of the decommissioned rangers .

Home port Japan

After the overhaul, the Kitty Hawk was the only US forward carrier stationed in Yokosuka , Japan, where it replaced the Independence . At the same time, the Carrier Air Wing Five (CVW 5), also permanently stationed in Japan, came on board.

On the right the Kitty Hawk next to the Independence , which it replaced as a carrier stationed in Japan

In August 1998 the Kitty Hawk reached Yokosuka.

In November, she was the now longest-serving ship in the US fleet the honor of the First Navy Jack as Gösch to hoist. In 2001 every ship in the fleet was ordered to show this gösch for the duration of the war on terror , but the Kitty Hawk was still the longest-serving ship. In March 1999, the porter moved to the waters around Guam for a three-month exercise . However, in April the porter's marching plan was changed. The Kitty Hawk was supposed to replace the Enterprise in the Arabian Gulf, as the planned replacement had instead been sent to the Mediterranean at short notice to launch attacks as part of the Kosovo war . In April the Kitty Hawk entered Arabian waters again. In addition to over 8,800 flights to enforce and monitor the Iraqi no-fly zone, carrier aircraft dropped 20 tons of ammunition on ground targets in Iraq. In July she was replaced by Theodore Roosevelt after the war in Kosovo came to an end. Over the turn of the millennium, the ship was in the dock for maintenance work. During training missions on October 17, 2000 two Russian fighter jets flew over the carrier without being intercepted beforehand. According to the US Navy, this was due to communication errors.

In the spring of 2001, the Kitty Hawk took part in a joint exercise with the Royal Australian Navy and the Canadian Forces Maritime Command . On the occasion of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the ANZUS agreement , the Kitty Hawk was the US representative in Woolloomooloo Bay , Sydney. In June, the Kitty Hawk went to the Yokosuka shipyard, where rolling airframe missile starters were installed. It was there during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 . After a test voyage shortened due to the events, the Kitty Hawk was relocated to the Arabian Sea on October 1 as part of Operation Enduring Freedom . On this trip only 15 aircraft were on board, as the Kitty Hawk was to serve as a base for special forces on site. As of October 12, 600 soldiers from Task Force Sword came on board with 20 helicopters from the Omani island of Masirah . They carried out attacks against Taliban targets in Afghanistan until December. After 74 days in combat, the carrier returned to Japan. Maintenance work took place in early 2002, followed by test and training drives. After a total of six crew members of the Kitty Hawk were arrested on shore leave in Japan for burglary, robbery and drug smuggling in the summer of 2002 , the ship's commander, Thomas A. Hejl, was relieved of his command. In addition to the bad leadership of the team, his undoing was that the carrier under his command had rammed a buoy off Singapore in 2002 and damaged a propeller and the associated shaft.

Night launch of an F-14 Tomcat at the beginning of the Iraq war

In February 2003 another relocation to the Persian Gulf took place. Once there, flights were initially carried out as part of Operation Southern Watch. The ship was already on site at the beginning of the Iraq war . His planes dropped 37 laser-guided bombs on Iraqi targets on the first day of the war , and by the end of April they had dropped over 400 tons of ammunition. Back in Japan, the porter was docked and modernized by October. In 2004 and 2005 the ship took part in several exercises and maneuvers, in 2006 the Kitty Hawk was one of three carriers in the Valiant Shield maneuver , the largest concentration of fleets in the Pacific since the Vietnam War. Also in October 2006, the Kitty Hawk was with her combat group for maneuvers at sea off Okinawa. During this voyage, a Chinese, diesel-electric powered submarine of the Song class followed the group unnoticed and penetrated the group. It was not spotted by the carrier's aircraft until it finally surfaced approximately five miles from the Kitty Hawk . This meant that the Kitty Hawk was within attack range before the boat was discovered.

For Thanksgiving 2007, the Kitty Hawk was supposed to be in Hong Kong to enable the crew there to celebrate the holidays with many family members flown in. Together with her escorts, the Kitty Hawk approached the port in November, but was turned away by the local port authority, which allegedly had no knowledge of the visit that the US Navy had planned for months. After first attempts to clear up the confusion, the combat group had to leave the coast because bad weather was expected there. Only when the combat group was on the way to Yokosuka again did China allow entry; however, the group did not turn back. This episode coincided with a time when China and the US were in disagreement over trade deals and the US Congress had awarded the Congressional Gold Medal , Congress’s highest civilian honor, to the Dalai Lama Tendzin Gyatsho .

In 2008 the Kitty Hawk took part in an exercise with the Japanese Navy and left Yokosuka for good on May 28, to return to San Diego via Hawaii. George Washington was selected as the new carrier for Yokosuka . This decision was received critically against the background of the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, since the Washington is a Nimitz- class carrier and is therefore nuclear-powered. However, since the Kitty Hawk was the last conventionally powered carrier in the US Navy, there was no alternative and the Japanese government approved the plan. Even the governor of Kanagawa Prefecture , Shigefumi Matsuzawa , gave up his initial resistance.

The last flight deck take-offs of aircraft types EA-6B-Prowler and F / A-18F Super Hornet in August 2008

Decommissioning

The Kitty Hawk passed Washington in 2008 in San Diego , which it replaced in Japan

Already on May 22, 2008, six days before the Kitty Hawk was supposed to cast off in Yokosuka and set out for Pearl Harbor to hand over a large part of the crew to the George Washington so that the seamen stationed in Japan could stay there, set off the George Washington started a fire. The ship had to be sent to San Diego for repairs. The Kitty Hawk was diverted to Apra Harbor on Guam after it had become clear that the repair would take longer . However, since the Washington was more heavily damaged than initially thought, the Kitty Hawk took the place of the Washington in the 2008 RIMPAC exercise . The two porters only met in San Diego at the beginning of August to exchange crews. On September 25th, the new porter reached Yokosuka.

The Kitty Hawk, however, was decommissioned on January 31, 2009. The youngest ship of the Nimitz class, the George HW Bush, took over her place in the fleet . On May 12, 2009, the ship was decommissioned at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Bremerton , Washington, to be available as a reserve until the Gerald R. Ford was commissioned .

What should happen to the Kitty Hawk was initially unclear. A group from Wilmington , North Carolina, wanted to lay the ship next to the North Carolina moored there and prepare it as a museum ship. It would have been one of the last aircraft carriers with which this would have been possible, as it still had conventional propulsion. The nuclear powered carriers are unsuitable as museum ships because of the effort that would have to be made to deactivate the nuclear reactors. In 2013, a group from Pensacola also expressed interest in the Kitty Hawk to be exhibited in the port there. The group had previously concentrated on the USS Forrestal , which, however, was unsuitable due to its poor condition.

Due to a Navy armament request by US President Donald Trump , reactivation of the aircraft carrier was considered in mid-2017. However, on October 20, 2017, she was removed from the Naval Vessel Register . Four days later, the Naval Sea Systems Command announced that it would be scrapped.

literature

  • Richard F. Miller: A Carrier at War: On Board the USS Kitty Hawk in the Iraq War . Potomac Books, Washington DC 2005, ISBN 1-57488-960-5 .

Web links

Commons : USS Kitty Hawk  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Norman Polmar: Naval Institute Guide to the Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet . US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2005, ISBN 978-1-59114-685-8 . Pages 122f
  2. ↑ a b c d e history of Kitty Hawk in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (Engl.)
  3. ^ Norman Friedman: US Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History . US Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1983, ISBN 0-87021-739-9 , pages 277ff.
  4. ^ Stefan Terzibaschitsch : Sea power USA . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1981, ISBN 3-86047-576-2 , page 296.
  5. ↑ National Museum of the Air Force: U-2 Aircraft Carrier Tail Hook and Q-tip ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalmuseum.af.mil
  6. ↑ The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954–1974 (PDF; 9.7 MB) pages 247ff. (engl.)
  7. ^ A b Arthur Wyllie: Aerial Victories of the Jet Era . Self-published, 2005, ISBN 978-1-4116-6598-9 .
  8. ↑ summary of a hearing in the US Congress (Engl.)
  9. ↑ Fire in the ship . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1972 ( online ). Kill them . In: Der Spiegel . No.
     51 , 1972 ( online ).
  10. ↑ History on the official ship website ( Memento of the original from September 14, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kittyhawk.navy.mil
  11. ↑ Chris & David Miller, Modern Warships, Stocker-Schmid Verlag, Dietikon-Zürich 1990, page 117
  12. ↑ CBS: US Aircraft Carrier Captain Canned (Eng.)
  13. ↑ Washington Times: China sub stalked US fleet (Eng.)
  14. ↑ Navy Times: China snubs Kitty Hawk  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.navytimes.com  
  15. ^ Newell, Casandra: US decomissions Kitty Hawk , in: Janes Defense Weekly , Volume 46, Issue 20, May 20, 2009.
  16. ↑ WWAY News Channel 3 "USS Kitty Hawk will have to stay in reserve" published December 4, 2008 ( Memento of the original from December 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wwaytv3.com
  17. ↑ After decades of faithful service, the USS Kitty Hawk is awaiting her fate while in reserve status with the US Navy.
  18. ↑ Press release McIntyre Asks Navy To Bring USS Kitty Hawk To Wilmington of the North Carolina Democratic Party ( Memento of the original from October 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (engl.)  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ncdp.org
  19. ↑ http://www.military.com/daily-news/2012/10/22/enterprise-nimitz-class-carriers-wont-be-museums.html
  20. ^ Cory Pippin: The "anchor" that may well solve the Maritime Park financial woes. In: fox10tv.com. January 31, 2013, archived from the original on June 1, 2013 ; accessed on September 30, 2017 .
  21. Jump up ↑ Tyler Rogoway: US Navy Looking At Bringing Retired Carrier USS Kitty Hawk Out Of Mothballs. In: thedrive.com. August 6, 2017, accessed September 30, 2017 .
  22. ^ The Navy Is Considering Calling Up The USS Kitty Hawk Amid Fleet Expansion Pressure. June 9, 2017, accessed January 31, 2019 .
  23. ↑ It's Official: The Former USS Kitty Hawk Will Be Dismantled. October 25, 2017, accessed January 31, 2019 .
  24. ↑ USS Kitty Hawk veterans devastated the aircraft carrier is headed for the scrapyard. Accessed January 31, 2019 .
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on January 10, 2009 in this version .