Why This U.S. Aircraft Carrier Was Sold For Only 1 Cent

Aircraft carriers are extraordinary to behold. By their very nature, of course, they're designed to accommodate aircraft, and this demands ample space to take off and land safely too (including equipment such as that used by helicopters to land in rough weather). As such, it's really no surprise that aircraft carriers are grand in both scale and cost. The U.S. Navy's mighty USS Gerald R. Ford, for instance, had an eye-watering price tag of $13.3 billion.

Even if such vessels did happen to be available to the public, it's safe to say that most of us don't have $13 billion tucked away. As ever, though, patient bargain hunting can really pay off. One of the United States' aircraft carriers was once sold for a measly cent.

The circumstances, of course, were highly unusual, and the carrier in question wasn't exactly in tip-top condition. Here's the story of the remarkable vessel's final journey.

USS Kitty Hawk arrived in 1960. It was designed with architecture better suited to storing, taking on and deploying the aircraft with which it would work in concert. Unlike some military endeavors, it was far from an ultimately obsolete-before-it-began vessel: The iconic Kitty Hawk excelled in conflict.

Kitty Hawk's crew and Carrier Air Wing Eleven performed such a pivotal role in the fiercest fighting of the Vietnam War that, in January of 1969, they were honored with the Presidential Unit Citation. Decades later, in the early 2000s, it proved a crucial launch pad for operations during the likes of Operation Southern Watch during the Iraq War. The venerable vessel, however, could not serve forever.

Kitty Hawk finally retired in 2009. Needless to say, such carriers had advanced considerably over her lifetime. There were no others in use that were still oil-powered. This very special ship, then, was not destined to simply rust, the memories of its former service fading away. Instead, it was to be dismantled for scrap.

On January 15, 2022, the U.S. Naval Institute shared the details of Kitty Hawk's less-than-glorious ultimate fate on Twitter. "USS Kitty Hawk today started her final voyage from Bremerton to a scrapyard in Texas," the Tweet read. "Kitty Hawk was sold to the scrap company for the bargain price of 1 cent."

A bargain indeed. Of course, the iconic ship wasn't fit for much more at this point. Languishing for a long time without attentive service is sure to spell doom for any vessel, and the increasingly-obsolete Kitty Hawk had spent over a decade at a shipyard in Puget Sound after finishing its long and decorated life of service.

The U.S. Naval Institute also added that Kitty Hawk was finally taken apart alongside another vessel: USS John F. Kennedy. This vessel was the last of the oil-powered carriers to be built, in the late 1960s, and would be a major player in the offensive during Operation Desert Storm.

It ceased service two years before Kitty Hawk, and would be purchased for a bargain price right along with it. It cost the scrap company just a penny. Between the two vessels, that's a pretty penny for such a tremendous piece of U.S. military history.