John F Kennedy (CV 67) - Naval Cruise Book

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I 5- A Collosus is Born . V' 4 .f A jjg' the Kennedy was no more than a 26-foot long. 4.000-ton steel box which was termed a struc- tural enclosure. After its successful launching from Shipway 8. shipyard tugs floated the section about 400 yards up the James River into Shipway 1 1. Here the building drama continued to unfold in a day- by-day. month-by-month spectacle. By the fall of 1965. the giant carrier towered above the top of the shipway. and by early 1966, the overall length of the carrier could be clearly seen. The first steel forthe flight deck was welded into place in the summer of 1966 and work was begun on the island structure later that same year. Finally. on July 30, 1968. USS John F. Ken- nedy was taken to sea for trials and tests before her delivery and commissioning in September. 1968. Since its first keel plates were laid down on an October morning in 1964. USS John F. Kennedy grew weld by weld and deck by deck to its full enormity--five city blocks in length, 252 fleet across the flight deck and the height of a 23- story building. The keel for USS John F. Kennedy was laid Oct. 22. 1964. about six months after the 5188.5 million contract was awarded by the Navy. USS John F. Kennedy spent the first six months ofits con- struction period inclined on Shipway 8 of the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company because the nuclear aircraft carrier Enterprise was being refueled and overhauled in the building dock known as Shipway l 1. On May 15, 1966. with the north side Enterprise work completed in Shipway 1 1, the Kennedy was shifted in the 1,100-foot facility. At the time, MSM Q ,gr-if -' -1 A .ma..xl'l3 Q

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Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: 'I served in the United States Navy.',' - John F. Kennedy 1 . John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1917-1963 John Fitzgerald Kennedy was bom May 29, 1917, in Brookline, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph P. Kennedy, a prominent businessman, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain for four year. John F. Kennedy acted as his father's secretary in London in 1938 and graduated from Harvard in 1940. He commanded a Navy PT-boat in the Pacific during World War II. In action off the Solomons, his boat was sunk by an enemy destroyer and Kennedy was credited with heroism in saving his crew. His political career began in 1946 when he was elected to Congress as a Democrat from Massachusetts and continued with his reelection in 1948 and 1950. In 1952 Kennedy was elected to the U.S. Senate. In 1954-55, he underwent operations on a spinal injury, suffered during the war. Away from the Senate, Kennedy wrote Profiles in Couragef' for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. In 1958 he was reelected to the Senate. At the Democratic National Convention in 1960, Kennedy received the Presidential nomination. Kennedy won the election and at 43 became the youngest man ever elected to the White House. President Kennedy's administration, called the New Frontier, pressed for federal aid to education, enlargement of civil rights, aid to economically depressed areas, medical care for the aged, and an accelerated space program. In foreign affairs, his principal accomplishments were the establishment of the Peace Corps, the Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the nuclear test ban treaty. John F. Kennedy died on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, as the result of an assassin's bullet.

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4 if ,fs . . -4s.fm.-ssawewhu 1 cnrisren Thee--John F. Kennedy rl May 27, 1967 ltlil XI? 1 ks ,. IL-1-.ff IAIYXY .J Some 30.000 spectators gathered at Shipway l l,New- port News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. to wit- ness the launching ol' thc Navy's newest aircralit carrier. President Lyndon B. Johnson. delivering the principal address. wasjoined on the podium by members ofthe Ken- nedy family. including sponsor Miss Caroline Bouvier Kennedy. Matron of Honor Mrs. John F. Kennedy. and a distinguished list of military and civilian dignitaries. As the bottle of champagne crashed across the bow with Caroline's swift blow, the ship floated free from the keel blocks which had supported it during its years of construction. Hull 577 was now the mighty aircraft carTier John F. Kennedy. A little over a year later. John F. Kennedy entered the fleet after being commissioned on September 7. l968. i.-P . J-51 J.. H 5 cpu r fi -Q-i. is gi il 7W I eiisarafefffe 'S -:E