USS Forrestal (CVA-59) (later CV-59, then AVT-59), was a supercarrier named after the first United States Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. Commissioned in 1955, she was the United States' first completed supercarrier, and was the lead ship of her class .

CV-59 General Specifications. Class: Forrestal-class aircraft carrier. Named for: James Forrestal. Complement: 552 Officers and 4988 Enlisted. Displacement: 59650 tons. Length: 990 feet . Beam: 129 feet 4 inches. Flank Speed: 33 knots . Final Disposition: To be sunk as an artificial reef

Forrestal visited Joint Task Force 1 at Bikini Lagoon in the Marshall Islands for Test Able of Operation Crossroads to witness the detonation of an atomic bomb and its effects upon over 90 ships,...

Sep 11, 1993 · On 29 July 1967, USS Forrestal (CVA/CV-59) suffered a catastrophic fire during flight operations while on Yankee Station off the coast of Vietnam. Wracked by eight high-order explosions of...

The lead ship of her class of aircraft carriers, USS Forrestal (CVA-59) was commissioned on October 1, 1955, at Newport News, Virginia. As the U.S. Navy's first "supercarrier", she operated in...

The operation, involving ships, aircraft, and personnel from eight NATO countries, was designed to practice rapid reinforcement and resupply of the southern European region in times of tension or war. CV 59 arrived in Rota, spain, Oct. 11, for the last overseas port stop of the deployment.

USS Forrestal (CVA-59), the first of four ships of her class and the Navy's first supercarrier was placed in commission at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, Va., CAPT R.L. Johnson in command. This was the follow-on ship to the CVA-58 which had been cancelled six years earlier.

When placed in commission on 01 October 1955, USS FORRESTAL was the first of the "super-carriers" and the largest warship ever constructed. She displaced almost 80,000 tons and was 1,076 feet long and 129 feet in beam at the waterline.

Commissioned in 1955, only eight months after Ark Royal, “FID” (“First in Defense”), it was then the largest ship ever built, some 990 feet in length, as big as the luxury liner SS United States and 150 feet longer than the Yamato-class battleships. She displaced nearly sixty thousand tons standard and more than eighty thousand full load.

The USS Forrestal (CV-59), formerly AVT-59 and CVA-59, is a supercarrier that was named after former Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and was the lead ship of her class of aircraft carriers. The other carriers of her class were the USS …