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USS Forrestal
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 , and . She surpassed the World War II Japanese carrier 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. She was also informally known in the fleet as the "USS Zippo" and "Forrest Fire" or "Firestal" because of a number of highly publicized fires on board, most notably a 1967 fire in which 134 sailors died and 161 more were injured. ''Forrestal'' served for nearly four decades in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. She was decommissioned in ...
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USS Forrestal (CVA-59) Underway At Sea On 31 May 1962 (KN-4507)
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 , and . She surpassed the World War II Japanese carrier 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. She was also informally known in the fleet as the "USS Zippo" and "Forrest Fire" or "Firestal" because of a number of highly publicized fires on board, most notably a 1967 fire in which 134 sailors died and 161 more were injured. ''Forrestal'' served for nearly four decades in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. She was decommissioned in 199 ...
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USS Forrestal (CV-59) Insignia 1986
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 , and . She surpassed the World War II Japanese carrier 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. She was also informally known in the fleet as the "USS Zippo" and "Forrest Fire" or "Firestal" because of a number of highly publicized fires on board, most notably a 1967 fire in which 134 sailors died and 161 more were injured. ''Forrestal'' served for nearly four decades in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. She was decommissioned in ...
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USS Forrestal (CVA-59), Starboard View, 1955
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 , and . She surpassed the World War II Japanese carrier 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. She was also informally known in the fleet as the "USS Zippo" and "Forrest Fire" or "Firestal" because of a number of highly publicized fires on board, most notably a 1967 fire in which 134 sailors died and 161 more were injured. ''Forrestal'' served for nearly four decades in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. She was decommissioned in 199 ...
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1967 USS Forrestal Fire
On 29 July 1967, a fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier after an electrical anomaly caused a Zuni rocket on an F-4B Phantom to fire, striking an external fuel tank of an A-4 Skyhawk. The flammable jet fuel spilled across the flight deck, ignited, and triggered a chain reaction of explosions that killed 134 sailors and injured 161. At the time, ''Forrestal'' was engaged in combat operations in the Gulf of Tonkin, during the Vietnam War. The ship survived, but with damage exceeding US$72 million, not including the damage to aircraft. Future United States Senator John McCain and future four-star admiral and U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Ronald J. Zlatoper were among the survivors. Another on-board officer, Lieutenant Tom Treanore, later returned to the ship as its commander and retired an admiral. The disaster prompted the Navy to revise its fire fighting practices. It also modified its weapon handling procedures and installed a deck wash down system on all carriers. The ...
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Forrestal-class Aircraft Carrier
The ''Forrestal''-class aircraft carriers were four aircraft carriers designed and built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. The class ship was named for James Forrestal, the first United States Secretary of Defense. It was the first class of supercarriers, combining high tonnage, deck-edge elevators and an angled deck. The first ship was commissioned in 1955, the last decommissioned in 1998. The four ships of the class were scrapped in Brownsville, Texas, between 2014 and 2017. Design The ''Forrestal'' class was the first completed class of "supercarriers" of the Navy, so called because of their then-extraordinarily high tonnage (75,000 tons, 25% larger than the post-World War II-era ), full integration of the angled deck, very large island, and most importantly their extremely strong air wing (80–100 jet aircraft, compared to 65–75 for the ''Midway'' class and fewer than 50 for the ). Compared to the ''Midway'' class, the ''Forrestal''s were longer and nea ...
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Maritime Call Sign
Maritime call signs are call signs assigned as unique identifiers to ships and boats. All radio transmissions must be individually identified by the call sign. Merchant and naval vessels are assigned call signs by their national licensing authorities. History One of the earliest applications of radiotelegraph operation, long predating broadcast radio, were marine radio stations installed aboard ships at sea. In the absence of international standards, early transmitters constructed after Guglielmo Marconi's first trans-Atlantic message in 1901 were issued arbitrary two-letter calls by radio companies, alone or later preceded by a one-letter company identifier. These mimicked an earlier railroad telegraph convention where short, two-letter identifiers served as Morse code abbreviations to denote the various individual stations on the line (for instance, AX could represent Halifax). "N" and two letters would identify U.S. Navy; "M" and two letters would be a Marconi station. On Apr ...
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Newport News Shipbuilding
Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is the largest industrial employer in Virginia, and sole designer, builder and refueler of United States Navy aircraft carriers and one of two providers of U.S. Navy submarines. Founded as the Chesapeake Dry Dock and Construction Co. in 1886, Newport News Shipbuilding has built more than 800 ships, including both naval and commercial ships. Located in the city of Newport News, its facilities span more than , strategically positioned in one of the great harbors of the East Coast. The shipyard is a major employer, not only for the lower Virginia Peninsula, but also portions of Hampton Roads south of the James River and the harbor, portions of the Middle Peninsula region, and even some northeastern counties of North Carolina. The shipyard is building the s and . In 2013, Newport News Shipbuilding began the deactivation of the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, , which it also built. Newport Ne ...
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Naval Station Mayport
Naval Station Mayport is a major United States Navy base in Jacksonville, Florida. It contains a protected harbor that can accommodate aircraft carrier-size vessels, ship's intermediate maintenance activity (SIMA) and a military airfield (Admiral David L. McDonald Field) with one asphalt paved runway (5/23) measuring . Base history The station was commissioned in December 1942. It was reclassified as a Naval Sea Frontier base in 1943. A new naval auxiliary air station (NAAS) was established in April 1944. The naval section Base and the NAAS supported the United States Atlantic Fleet, Atlantic Fleet during World War II. Both were closed after the war. In June 1948, Mayport was reestablished as a naval outlying landing field. The base area was increased to and the runway was extended in the mid 1950s. became the first capital ship to use the new aircraft carrier basin in October 1952. The Base was renamed back to a Naval Auxiliary Air Station in July 1955. The naval station w ...
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Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean) and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, and north of South America. Situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region has more than 700 islands, islets, reefs and cays (see the list of Caribbean islands). Island arcs delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea: The Greater Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago on the north and the Lesser Antilles and the on the south and east (which includes the Leeward Antilles). They form the West Indies with the nearby Lucayan Archipelago (the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands), which are considered to be part of the Caribbean despite not bordering the Caribbe ...
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Virginia Capes
The Virginia Capes are the two capes, Cape Charles to the north and Cape Henry to the south, that define the entrance to Chesapeake Bay on the eastern coast of North America. In 1610, a supply ship learned of the famine at Jamestown when it landed at Cape Henry. "America and West Indies: June 1610." ''Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies'': Volume 1, 1574-1660. Ed. W Noel Sainsbury. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1860. 9-10British History Online.Retrieved 13 June 2019. The importance of Chesapeake Bay in American history has long made the Virginia Capes strategically significant, most notably in the naval Battle of the Chesapeake that was crucial to the American victory at the siege of Yorktown, effectively ending the American Revolutionary War. As a result, the area was heavily garrisoned, beginning with the construction of Fort Monroe and Fort Wool in 1819. During the American Civil War, a pivotal battle between the ironclad warships and w ...
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Norfolk, Virginia
Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Beach and Chesapeake, and the 94th-largest city in the nation. Norfolk holds a strategic position as the historical, urban, financial, and cultural center of the Hampton Roads region, which has more than 1.8 million inhabitants and is the thirty-third largest Metropolitan Statistical area in the United States. Officially known as ''Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA'', the Hampton Roads region is sometimes called "Tidewater" and "Coastal Virginia"/"COVA," although these are broader terms that also include Virginia's Eastern Shore and entire coastal plain. Named for the eponymous natural harbor at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, Hampton Roads has ten cities, including Norfolk; seven counties in Virginia; and two counties in No ...
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Naval Station Norfolk
Naval Station Norfolk is a United States Navy base in Norfolk, Virginia, that is the headquarters and home port of the U.S. Navy's Fleet Forces Command. The installation occupies about of waterfront space and of pier and wharf space of the Hampton Roads peninsula known as Sewell's Point. It is the world's largest naval station, with the largest concentration of U.S. Navy forces through 75 ships alongside 14 piers and with 134 aircraft and 11 aircraft hangars at the adjacently operated Chambers Field. Port Services controls more than 3,100 ships' movements annually as they arrive and depart their berths. Air Operations conducts over 100,000 flight operations each year, an average of 275 flights per day or one every six minutes. Over 150,000 passengers and 264,000 tons of mail and cargo depart annually on Air Mobility Command (AMC) aircraft and other AMC-chartered flights from the airfield's AMC Terminal. History The area where the base is located was the site of the original ...
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