Franklin D Roosevelt (CV 42) - Naval Cruise Book

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4.--:J e-1. .- vw..:w ...- - 1, - W. . ,L ,. QL. 1. 'fr.:r2: r-We av fillers wiiwf.-Sf 5512. i:.i:,.r.e October 4, 1976 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT deployed for an unequaled twentieth time to the Mediterranean Sea. On October 14 she relieved AMERICA CV-66 at Rota and transited into the Mediterranean where a Russian KRIVAK class DDG began shadowing her. The ship celebrated her 31st birthday in port at Naples on October 27th. On November 9, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT hosted Dr. John J. Bennett, Assistant Secretary of the Navy flnstallations and Logisticsi, Senator Dewey F. Bartlett and Senator Sam Nunn, while operating in the eastern Mediterranean. Late in November ROOSEVELT Phantoms intercepted high speed Soviet manufactured bombers transiting the Mediterranean. On November 27, an exercise in flexibility was performed with the cross decking of the entire AV8A Harrier squadron to the GUAM LPH-9. GUAM then transited, via the Suez Canal, to Mombasa, Kenya to participate in an air show at Nairobi, during that country's Independence Day celebrations. ROOSEVELT anchored at Taranto, Italy on December 13 and remained there over the Christmas holidays. The AV-8 squadron was cross decked back to the ROOSEVELT on December 27. The ship visited the ports of the Mediterranean for the final time, stopping at Catania, Sicily, Naples, Genoa, Monaco, Cannes, Barcelona, and Palma de Mallorca. During these port calls thousands of European visitors came aboard for a final look at the Grand Old Lady which had represented America in the Mediterranean for over three decades. Relieved in Rota on April 12, 1977, by INDEPEN DENCE CV-62, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT made her last transit to Mayport, Florida arriving there on April 21, 1977 , The rumors of decommissioning and her last last cruise began to take on an ominous reality as the offload of the Air Wing commenced. Few of her crew really could believe that the veteran of so many cruises would really be put to rest, and worse, scrapped On June 8th, 1977 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT got underway for the last time on her own power. Transiting to Norfolk the last sounding over the 1MC of Now go to your stations all the Special Sea and Anchor Detail had a chilling ring to it. As the hangar bays were filled with equipment to be offloaded and the waterline rose ever higher it was like a death rattle could be heard resounding within her mighty steel hull. On June 26, the ship which was once billed as the largest, strongest, and fastest was towed ignominiously up the Elizabeth River to the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where torches began to out at her Scheduled for decommissioning on October 1, 1977 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT will be struck from the Naval Vessel Register and sold for scrapping in the spring of 1978. In years when there is no longer even a hulk of what once was the FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT there will always be those of her crew who will remember her and who will say with pride of the highest mark I SERVED ON THE FDR

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