Kitty Hawk (CVA 63) - Naval Cruise Book

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UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS

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KITTY HAWK 1903 • 1963 Wright brothers Memorial, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina It only took 12 seconds on the morning of Decem- ber 17, 1903, to change the future course of world events. From the flat beach land of Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, man left the earth in a powered machine. Those I ' J seconds marked the first time in the history of the world that a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full ffight, had gone forward without reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started. With those 12 seconds, Orville and Wilbur Wright started the Air Age. Todav, fiO years later, the attack aircraft carrier USS KITTY HAWK (CVA-63) sails the world ' s oceans as a living monument to their success. To the Navy, KITTY HAWK represents the most up- to-date in Naval Aviation. To every American, she is one of the most powerful weapons ever devised for the defense of the free world. The first ship Kitty Hawk The events of December 7, 1941, demonstrated the need for air superiority at sea. Not only were 17 new Essex class carriers constructed, but jeep- carriers, and auxiliaries and aircraft transports also were made to narrow the gap between the Japanese. The first aircraft transport, a reconverted com- mercial ship, had been commissioned in June 1941 as USS KITTY HAWK (AFV-1) in honor of the first flight. Although limited in size, the first ship KITTY HAWK was not limited in cargo or theater of action. She sailed all over the Pacific hauling everything from planes to men, and she aided in the campaigns of Guadacanal, Bouganville and Okinawa. On January 26, 1946, the 14-year-old ship was decommissioned and returned to her original owners. On July 13, 1955, the second ship KITTY HAWK was authorized by Congress. Designated CVA-63, she was thought part of the Forrestal class. But from the time her keel was laid on December 27, 1957, until she was launched in May of 1960, she was recognized as something different. In her birthplace at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Camden, New Jersey, many saw a first in carriers. KITTY HAWK ' s embryo island structure was being fitted two-thirds of the way aft intead of amidships, permitting two elevators forward to provide for easier handling of the aircraft. Another major difference was most shocking. Nowhere around the profile were the usual anti-aircraft guns. Instead there were two Terrier surface-to-air missile batteries near the stern. This was a new revolution in self-defense, missiles aboard a carrier. These two major differences caused many to say that the new ship was the first in its class, the KITTY HAWK class. After three years of construction, the new ship went to sea in February 1961 for the builder ' s trials and Navy inspection. She passed both exams satis- factorily and was ready to embark htr crew and become a ship of the line.