The USS America (CV-66) is a unique chapter in U.S. naval history—part Cold War behemoth, part engineering wonder, and finally the star of one of the most bizarre finales a carrier ever had. Commissioned in 1965, she was of the Kitty Hawk class, designed to replace the nuclear-powered USS Enterprise.
But when the Enterprise’s cost rose so high, the Navy made a pragmatic decision: construct America with conventional boilers. That choice made her one of the last conventionally powered supercarriers before the transition to all-nuclear carriers.
For more than three decades, America was a reliable workhorse. She traversed the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and ventured into the Pacific. During the Vietnam War, her aircrews made over 10,000 combat sorties, dropped thousands of tons of bombs, and never lost one of their aircraft to the enemy, a record that reflected well on both the ship and those on board her.
In the 1980s, she was operating off the coast of Libya, where the Harpoon anti-ship missile had its combat debut. Some years later, in Operation Desert Storm, her jets flew more than 3,000 missions against Iraqi forces.
But her duty wasn’t only for waging war. America was present for humanitarian operations, crisis evacuations, and many other missions that necessitated an able, flexible vessel. Crew members who served on her recall the never-ceasing hum of the engines, the deafening noise of jets taking off, and the constant feeling of responsibility that came with a job on the flight deck—where discipline and precision were the only means between an ordinary day and catastrophe.
By the mid-1990s, the post–Cold War drawdown had come hard. While her sister ships Kitty Hawk and Constellation received costly life-extension overhauls, America did not. She was retired in 1996 and transferred to the Philadelphia Naval Inactive Ships Facility, where she rested for almost a decade. Many had hoped she would be saved as a museum, but the Navy had other plans.
In 2005, America was stealthily pulled deep into the Atlantic for a secret test named SinkEx. The idea was to observe how a new carrier would perform under constant battle damage—and collect data that would shape future carrier designs. For four weeks, she absorbed blow after blow: bombs, missiles, underwater explosions designed to simulate torpedo attacks.
To everyone’s surprise, America wouldn’t quit. Her double hull and enormous internal structure absorbed the beating. Even when it was worst, she remained afloat. Eventually, Navy crews had to board her and set demolition charges within to force her down.
On May 14, 2005, at 11:30 a.m., she glided below the surface, coming to rest upright almost 17,000 feet down, somewhere between South Carolina and Bermuda. She became the biggest warship ever deliberately sunk—and the sole modern U.S. supercarrier to share that distinction.
The lesson of her final mission was plain: sinking a carrier with conventional munitions is much more difficult than most assume, particularly when it is refueled, weaponed, and manned. America’s sacrifice was taken into account in the lessons learned during the building of the subsequent carriers, which were made more durable and better equipped for the worst.
Today, the USS America lies deep in the Atlantic. She is gone from the surface, but her tale remains—a reminder that there are some vessels not constructed to serve, but to fight to the end.