Navy Sells USS Saratoga, Berthed in Newport, for One Cent

The USS Saratoga, berthed at Naval Station Newport, has been sold to a a Texas company for a penny.

The decommissioned aircraft carrier will be dismantled and recycled with ESCO Marine, the buyer, using proceeds from the sale of scrap metal to offset the cost of operations, the Navy said in a release.

The USS Saratoga is an important ship with a storied history that includes a role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam and Gulf wars and other events.

The ship will depart for Texas this summer, ending any dim hopes that she could be preserved or turned into a museum. 

Navy officials said the ship was available for donation for public display or memorial but in 12 years, no viable applications came in.

“The Navy continues to own the ship during the dismantling process,” Naval Sea Systems Command officials said in a news release. “The contractor takes ownership of the scrap metal as it is produced and sells the scrap to offset its costs of operations.”

The USS Saratoga was commissioned in 1956. She was decommissioned in 1994 after more than 38 years of service.

Also known as "Super Sara," the vessel was also involved in an 1986 airstrike against Lybia.

“[It is] emotional in that we who served on ‘Sara’ feel that our ‘surrogate mother’ is passing from our lives,” Sammy King, secretary of the USS Saratoga Association, told FoxNews.com in an email. “We owe her a lot. We went aboard as ‘snot-nosed kids’ and left as ‘men.’ Some of us are very sad and some are very angry at the decision to scrap her.”