Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise Inactivated

 

 

 

     The "Big E", U.S.S. Enterprise (the 8th U.S.S. Enterprise), CVN-65, after 51 years of service, over 400,000 arrested landings, many firsts (to include the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the longest warship in world history at 1,123 feet, the only ship to house 8 nuclear reactors), and home to more than 100,000 sailors since her commissioning in 1961, sits docked at Norfolk Naval Station as contractors remove parts and pieces during her decommissioning. 

     The Enterprise was inactivated December 1, 2012.  After more than 50 years of service, extending from its first mission tracking and measuring the 1962 Mercury "Friendship 7" (as Alan Shepard broke the barrier of the Earth's atmosphere) on to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Operation Sea Orbit, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iran, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and more, the sailors of the Big E continually showed that "There is Tough, then there is Enterprise Tough."

     Fans, friends, and families proudly and sadly watch (many pushing for it to become a museum) as this icon of United States Naval Power is slowly parted out.  Ironically, as fiscal woes halt many current operational carrier missions, it has also slowed  the defueling and decommissioning of CVN-65. 

     You can learn more about the Big E, its past and future, by visiting:

http://www.enterprise.navy.mil/ 

http://www.cvan-cvn-65.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/USS.Enterprise.CVN.65

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