Pretty soon, relics such as these will be all that is be left of Indy…
The ex-USS Independence (CV-62), last of the Forrestal-class of aircraft carriers that plied the seas from the 1950s to the 1990s, will begin its final voyage to Texas later this year to be turned into razor blades. The Navy is paying International Shipbreaking of Brownsville $6 million to tow the 90,000-ton vessel from the West Coast, around the Cape, to the Lone Star State and cut her to pieces in accordance with some very strict guidelines. The same firm has won contracts in recent years to break the Saratoga, Ranger, and Forrestal.
This steady selloff of old supercarriers leaves only USS Kitty Hawk, decommissioned in 2009, and USS John F. Kennedy, decommissioned in 2007, on “donation hold” for use as museums or memorials, while the Navy has issued a Request for Proposals for the USS Enterprise.
As noted in the Brownsville Herald, International Shipbreaking is vying for that job as well.
Currently at Bremerton, Washington since 1998, Indy gave 39 years of hard service including a tour off the coast of Vietnam in 1965, airstrikes against Syrian forces during the Lebanese Civil War and operations over Iraq during Operation Southern Watch.
For those interested, the firm also sells individual items such as pieces of deck armor, hatch signs, and other tidbits recovered from the old warships online as relics.
