Supporting 7th Fleet -- Kitty Hawk Celebrates More Than Four Decades of Service
Navy NewStand
Story Number: NNS030429-17
Release Date: 4/30/2003 4:57:00 AM
By Journalist 1st Class Janet M. Davis, USS Kitty Hawk Public Affairs
ABOARD USS KITTY HAWK, At Sea (NNS) -- On the back of an old Sunday newspaper insert, "Parade" in the San Diego Union, a record club advertises the albums of favorite recording stars like Chubby Checkers, Bobby Vinton and Johnny Mathis. An article inside offers insight on why teenage males in England are growing their hair long. Another informs the reader that the Beatles are becoming popular in the United States, with more than 50,000 fans enrolled in their fan club. On the cover, a picture of an A-3B Skywarrior heavy attack bomber as it lands on USS Kitty Hawk (CVA 63). The headline reads "America's First Line of Defense: The Seventh Fleet."
It's 1964, and Kitty Hawk is a major player.
Since her commissioning in 1961, Kitty Hawk has deployed on two Western Pacific cruises in support of 7th Fleet.
On the second of those cruises, according to historian Gareth L. Pawlowski, Kitty Hawk deployed to the Far East and provided air support for assault ground forces.
"During the cruise, she participated in two large scale amphibious operations, "Big Dipper" and "Back Pack," he wrote. "Included with the U.S. ships were forces from Nationalist China. The operations also showed the way in which American and allied forces can cooperate."
Kitty Hawk also established quite a few records during the cruise, he said. An all-Navy transfer record for at-sea loading of attack cargo stores of 75.5 tons per hour was set with USS Castor (AKS 1). In late March of 1963, the 15,000th arrested gear landing was logged.
According to the article in Parade, a publication targeted toward housewives, Kitty Hawk, as part of 7th Fleet, is the first line of defense in its then-current role in Vietnam and Laos, an area that is pockmarked with tinderboxes, which could burst into flame and plunge the United States into a general war.
"We have lived with, flown with, sailed with, eaten with the men of the seaborne front lines," wrote Parade journalist Ed Kiester of himself and his photographer after spending time on Kitty Hawk. "And what we have found is reassuring to American wives, husbands and families: The 7th Fleet was probably the roughest, toughest, most formidably equipped emergency force on earth - and one seemingly fully prepared for any eventuality."
During this time, according to Kiester, the technology and the statistics of the 7th Fleet are impressive.
"Among the 125 ships and 650 aircraft are three of the latest 'super-carriers,' more than 30 destroyers, seven or eight subs, a hunter-killer anti-sub contingent and a landing force of 24,000 Marines," he noted. "All bristle with the latest hardware - missile batteries on the cruisers and destroyers, all-weather rockets in the planes, an advanced 'dunking sonar' for the anti-sub force, batteries of computers to furnish a commander a second-by-second picture of combat intelligence. Navy men point with pride to their supersonic interceptor, the F-4 Phantom, which has already broken some speed records," he said. "Yet for all this power, the fleet has a strange job - again, unlike anything in World War II. It spends all its time playing war, but its mission is peace."
According to an article from the Association on Naval Aviation, during the next 10 years, Kitty Hawk and Air Wing II would complete six Vietnam conflict combat cruises, earn one Presidential Unit Citation, four Navy Unit Commendations, a Meritorious Unit Commendation and many other awards.
America's oldest active warship, Kitty Hawk with embarked Carrier Air Wing 5 recently operated with coalition forces in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the multinational coalition effort to liberate the Iraqi people, eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and end the regime of Saddam Hussein.
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