Retired carrier USS America sunk off U.S. [View All]

May 20, 2005

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (AP) -- The retired aircraft carrier USS America is on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, sunk by the Navy in a series of explosive tests that upset some veterans.

The 84,000-ton, 1,048-foot warship that served the Navy for 32 years rests about 60 miles off the coast and more than 6,000 feet down, according to Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command.

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No warship this size or larger had ever been sunk, and plans to sink the America caused controversy.

"Not a day goes by that I don't think about it," said Lee McNulty, president of the USS America Foundation, which wanted to turn the ship into a museum. "Of all the carriers, that one should have been saved, just for the name America."

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Somehow it seems appropriate that America was sunk.