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Carrier USS Kennedy to be decommissioned
The last ship my grandfather helped build (though not the last in service - USS Enterprise lives yet.)MAYPORT, Fla. - Sailors hung flags and banners and cleaned and removed equipment as they prepared the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy for its last hurrah Friday. "Big John" is being decommissioned after nearly 40 years of service. The ship was christened in May 1967 by Kennedy's then 9-year-old daughter, Caroline, and entered Navy service the next year. The cabin will be headed to a Navy museum. The carrier will be towed to Philadelphia, where it will be placed on inactive status. One of two remaining fossil fuel-powered aircraft carriers in the Navy, ... What's the other one? This is undoubtedly the key reason for its retirement. ... the ship supported Operation Desert Shield in Iraq in 1990, and was deployed in February 2002 to the North Arabian Sea during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. It also supported Operation Iraqi Freedom in June 2004, and its airwing dropped more than 54,000 pounds of bombs on Iraq. The Kennedy, based in Florida since 1995, recently served as a training platform for Navy pilots to obtain carrier landing qualification. A duty WW II carrier Lexington performed until ~15 years ago? The Navy suspended the ship's flight operations about a year ago, citing faulty landing equipment. (Not repaired or maintained due to scheduled decommissioning - sort of like Walter Reed Medical Center.) Posted by: Glenmore 2007-03-23 |
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