page_title: USS Saratoga (CV-60)
section_title: 1950s
hierarchical_section_title: USS Saratoga (CV-60) / Service history / 1950s
caption_attribution_description: The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CVA-60) during NATO "Operation Strikeback", in 1957. An Essex-class carrier is visible in the background, either USS Essex (CVA-9) or USS Wasp (CVS-18).
context_page_description: USS Saratoga, was the second of four Forrestal-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. Saratoga was the sixth U.S. Navy ship, and the second aircraft carrier, to be named for the Battles of Saratoga in the American Revolutionary War.
  Commissioned in 1956, she spent most of her career in the Mediterranean, but also participated during the Vietnam War, receiving one battle star for her service. One of her last operational duties was to participate in Operation Desert Storm.
  Saratoga was decommissioned in 1994, and was stored at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island. Multiple unsuccessful attempts were made to preserve her as a museum ship. The Navy paid ESCO Marine of Brownsville, Texas, one cent to take the ship for dismantling and recycling. On 15 September 2014, ex-Saratoga arrived in Brownsville, Texas, to be scrapped. Scrapping was completed by early 2019.
context_section_description: For the next several months, Saratoga conducted various engineering, flight, steering, structural, and gunnery tests. On 18 August, she sailed for Guantanamo Bay and her shakedown cruise. On 19 December, she reentered the New York Naval Shipyard and remained there until 28 February 1957. Upon completion of yard work, she got underway on a refresher training cruise to the Caribbean before entering her home port, Naval Station Mayport in Mayport, Florida.
  On 6 June 1957, President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower and members of his cabinet boarded Saratoga to observe operations on board the giant carrier. For two days, she and eighteen other ships demonstrated air operations, antisubmarine warfare, guided missile operations, and the Navy's latest bombing and strafing techniques. Highlighting the President's visit was the nonstop flight of two F8U Crusaders, spanning the nation in three hours and twenty-eight minutes, from  Bon Homme Richard off the West Coast to the flight deck of Saratoga in the Atlantic.
  Also in 1957, Saratoga conducted Regulus guided missile tests. She was one of ten aircraft carriers configured to operate the turbojet powered subsonic guided missile and only one of six carriers to ever actually launch the missile (performing two test launches) providing the first United States Navy nuclear strategic deterrence force.
  The carrier departed Mayport on 3 September 1957 for her maiden transatlantic voyage. Saratoga sailed into the Norwegian Sea and participated in Operation Strikeback, joint naval maneuvers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries. She returned briefly to Mayport before entering the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for repairs.
  On 1 February 1958, Saratoga departed Mayport for the Mediterranean and her first deployment with the Sixth Fleet. From this date through 31 December 1967 she was to spend a part of each year in the Mediterranean on a total of eight cruises. The remainder of the time, she either operated off the coast of Florida or was in port undergoing restricted availability.
caption: Saratoga during NATO Operation Strikeback (1957)
exif: {}