Why This U.S. Aircraft Carrier Was Sold For Only 1 Cent – SlashGear

USS Kitty Hawk arrived in 1960. It was designed with architecture better suited to storing, taking on and deploying the aircraft with which it would work in concert. Unlike some military endeavors, it was far from an ultimately obsolete-before-it-began vessel: The iconic Kitty Hawk excelled in conflict.

Kitty Hawk’s crew and Carrier Air Wing Eleven performed such a pivotal role in the fiercest fighting of the Vietnam War that, in January of 1969, they were honored with the Presidential Unit Citation. Decades later, in the early 2000s, it proved a crucial launch pad for operations during the likes of Operation Southern Watch during the Iraq War. The venerable vessel, however, could not serve forever.

Kitty Hawk finally retired in 2009. Needless to say, such carriers had advanced considerably over her lifetime. There were no others in use that were still oil-powered. This very special ship, then, was not destined to simply rust, the memories of its former service fading away. Instead, it was to be dismantled for scrap.

On January 15, 2022, the U.S. Naval Institute shared the details of Kitty Hawk’s less-than-glorious ultimate fate on Twitter. “USS Kitty Hawk today started her final voyage from Bremerton to a scrapyard in Texas,” the Tweet read. “Kitty Hawk was sold to the scrap company for the bargain price of 1 cent.”