![]() USS Forrestal on 31 May 1962
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History | |
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Name | Forrestal |
Namesake | James Forrestal |
Ordered | 12 July 1951 |
Builder | Newport News Shipbuilding |
Cost | US$217 million[2] |
Laid down | 14 July 1952 |
Launched | 11 December 1954 |
Acquired | 29 September 1955 |
Commissioned | 1 October 1955 |
Decommissioned | 11 September 1993 |
Reclassified |
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Stricken | 11 September 1993 |
Identification | |
Motto | First in Defense |
Fate | Scrapped, 15 December 2015 |
Badge | ![]() |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Forrestal-class aircraft carrier |
Displacement |
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Length |
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Beam |
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Draft | 37 ft (11 m) |
Propulsion |
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Speed | 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph) |
Complement | 552 officers, 4,988 enlisted |
Armament |
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Aircraft carried | approx. 85 aircraft (F-14, F-4, A-4, A-5, A-6, A-7, E-2, S-3B, EA-6B, C-2, SH-3, A-3B, KC-130 (test flight)) |
USS Forrestal (CVA-59) (later CV-59, then AVT-59), was a supercarrier named after the first United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. Commissioned in 1955, she was the United States' first completed supercarrier, and was the lead ship of her class. The other carriers of her class were USS Saratoga, USS Ranger and USS Independence. She surpassed the World War II Japanese carrier Shinano as the largest carrier yet built, and was the first designed to support jet aircraft.
The ship was affectionately called "The FID", because her namesake was the first Secretary of Defense, FID standing for "First In Defense". This is also the slogan on the ship's insignia and patch.
Forrestal served for nearly four decades in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. She was decommissioned in 1993, and made available as a museum. Attempts to save her were unsuccessful, and in February 2014 she was towed to Brownsville, Texas, to be scrapped. Scrapping was completed in December 2015.