When Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, USS America (CV-66) was already at sea in the Mediterranean, conducting what had been a routine Sixth Fleet deployment. Within days, those orders changed. By the time the largest coalition of military force assembled since World War II had massed itself around the Arabian Peninsula, America had joined it — transiting through the Suez Canal and into the Red Sea to take her place among the six carrier battle groups that would execute Operation Desert Storm. The ship that had struck Libya in 1986 was back in the fight. Her air wing, CVW-1, was ready.
The Ship
USS America (CV-66) was a Kitty Hawk-class carrier, commissioned on January 23, 1965, at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. She was one of the great Atlantic Fleet carriers — thirty years of service in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, with a combat record that included Vietnam, the strikes on Libya during Operation El Dorado Canyon in 1986, and now Desert Storm. By 1990 she was twenty-five years old and at the peak of her operational effectiveness, with a crew and air wing that had deployed together and knew what they were doing.
Carrier Air Wing One (CVW-1) embarked for the 1990-91 deployment. The air wing brought F-14 Tomcats from VF-33 (Starfighters) and VF-102 (Diamondbacks), F/A-18 Hornets from VFA-82 (Marauders) and VFA-86 (Sidewinders), A-6E Intruders from VA-85 (Black Falcons) for precision strike, EA-6B Prowlers for electronic warfare suppression, and E-2C Hawkeyes for command and control. It was a full-spectrum strike and fighter force shaped by decades of Cold War development.
Desert Shield: Positioning for War
America arrived in the Red Sea operating area in the fall of 1990 and took up position alongside USS Saratoga as part of the Red Sea carrier group. Together they represented the western flank of the coalition's naval airpower — a second axis of attack that would complicate Iraqi air defense planning and force the enemy to defend against strikes coming from multiple directions simultaneously.
The five-month Desert Shield buildup was a test of endurance and readiness. At elevated alert status, with combat aircrews running flight training and proficiency missions, with maintenance departments keeping aircraft at peak readiness, and with the entire ship's company holding its collective breath waiting for the diplomatic window to close and the war to begin — this was the hardest kind of waiting. You couldn't relax. You couldn't stop training. And you knew that when the moment came, there would be no second chances to be ready.
Operation Desert Storm
The air campaign began on January 17, 1991. CVW-1 aircraft launched from America into the pre-dawn darkness and flew north, joining the largest coordinated air assault in history. More than a thousand coalition aircraft struck targets across Iraq and Kuwait on the opening night — command and control nodes, air defense radar sites, Scud missile launchers, airfields, and the logistical infrastructure that sustained Saddam Hussein's military machine. America's air wing flew its assigned missions as part of that wave, attacking targets that had been carefully planned in the weeks leading up to the campaign.
Over the following forty-three days, CVW-1 flew hundreds of sorties. A-6E Intruders from VA-85 worked the night strike mission — the Intruder's all-weather navigation and attack system made it the weapon of choice for precision strikes in conditions where other aircraft couldn't operate. F-14 Tomcats from VF-33 and VF-102 provided fighter cover and, in their strike escort role, flew alongside the bombers into defended airspace. F/A-18 Hornets from VFA-82 and VFA-86 flew both air-to-air and strike missions, demonstrating the flexibility that would define carrier aviation through the following decades. EA-6B Prowlers jammed Iraqi radar and communications, degrading the effectiveness of the air defense systems that were trying to track and engage coalition aircraft.
The ground campaign that followed in late February 1991 was brief — a hundred hours that ended with Kuwait liberated and Iraq's forces in retreat. America's air wing had contributed to making that outcome possible.
Life Aboard During Desert Storm
For the crew of America, the Desert Storm deployment was the culmination of everything they had trained for. Months at sea in the Red Sea, living at a pace that didn't allow for the comfortable routines of a peacetime deployment. Flight operations were continuous — day and night, around the clock during the combat phase. Ordnancemen worked through the night building bomb loads. Maintenance crews fixed aircraft between sorties, racing against the flight schedule to turn aircraft around and get them back in the air. The ship's company — nearly 5,000 strong — functioned as the machine that made the air wing's missions possible.
The Red Sea in January and February is not comfortable operating water. Temperatures can drop at night; the ship moves differently in these narrower confines than in the open ocean. But the crew adapted, as Navy crews always do, because the work demanded it.
If you served aboard USS America during Desert Storm, browse the America 1990-91 cruise collection. The full America collection covers her entire career from commissioning to decommissioning.
Legacy
USS America was decommissioned on August 9, 1996, after thirty-one years of service. Unlike most decommissioned carriers that are preserved as museum ships or scrapped, America was intentionally sunk in 2005 as part of a Navy survivability test — a controversial end for a ship with so much history. The sailors who served aboard her in the Red Sea during Desert Storm carry that history regardless of what happened to the hull. They flew in the largest carrier air operation since Vietnam, from a ship that had earned its reputation over three decades of Atlantic Fleet service. That reputation was confirmed one final time in the skies over Iraq and Kuwait in early 1991.