The Enterprise went on to set a world record by making a round-the-world cruise in two months in 1964 - the first ship to do so without refueling. The standoff lasted 13 days, before Soviet ships turned around. They were scared that this was the end but they did their jobs." Polmar, the naval historian, says that "when the ship departed from Norfolk they made their phone calls and said goodbye I hope I'm back here in a few days. "All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port, when they're found to carry cargo of offensive weapons will be turned back," Kennedy said at the time. The Enterprise and its sailors were sent to take part. During the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, President John Kennedy, a former sailor himself, ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. Less than a year after the new Enterprise came into service, it started making its own history. The first carrier named Enterprise saw intense action in the Pacific during World War II. The first was a British vessel, captured during the American Revolution and renamed by the man who led that raid - Benedict Arnold. It was the eighth to bear the name Enterprise. "These were the fastest, the largest, the neatest ships in the world," he adds.Īnd even though the Enterprise was new, this was a ship with a history. "Most of the people that I've spoken with who served in early nuclear ships thought it was just fantastic to be assigned to them." "No problems at all with the nuclear plant, absolutely none," he says. Polmar says sailors didn't fear radioactive leaks or explosions. It was literally a floating metropolis, a home to 5,000 sailors and the most cutting-edge engine of the day, powered by eight nuclear reactors. "She was certainly the largest warship built by any nation up to that time," says naval expert Norman Polmar. When the Enterprise slipped into the waters off Norfolk for the first time, it was a modern marvel, more than 1,000 feet long. In its illustrious history, the Enterprise served at the center of international events for a half-century - from the Cuban missile crisis to Vietnam to the Iraq War.Īnd it had a distinguished Hollywood career as well, playing a leading role in the 1986 film Top Gun, which starred Tom Cruise as a young naval aviator. Sailors, veterans and their families are saying goodbye in Norfolk, Va., on Saturday to the USS Enterprise, which was the largest ship in the world and the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier when it was commissioned in 1961.
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