Norfolk, Virginia– USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, He came home To Virginia on Saturday after Posted for 11 months, The longest since the Vietnam War, which saw its support for The United States’ war with Iran and Nicolas Maduro arrested When he was president of Venezuela.
America’s most advanced warship and its two accompanying destroyers docked at Norfolk Naval Station with about 5,000 sailors on board waiting to see their families. For the first time since June. Besides combat operations and crossing continents, sailors aboard the carrier faced a non-combat fire that left hundreds without places to sleep and forced them into lengthy repairs on the Greek island of Crete.
Defense Minister Pete Hegseth was present when the warships arrived, including the destroyer USS Bainbridge.
Hegseth praised the Bainbridge crew for “a job well done.”
“You not only accomplished a mission, you made history,” Hegseth said on the destroyer’s deck. “You have made a nation proud of you.”
Hegseth also spoke to the crews of the destroyer USS Mahan and the destroyer Ford.
Ford’s 326 days at sea are the most for an aircraft carrier in the past 50 years, and broke the record for the longest post-Vietnam War deployment, according to U.S. Naval Institute News, a news outlet run by the U.S. Naval Institute, a nonprofit organization. The only longer deployments were the 1973 deployment of USS Midway in 332 days and the 1965 deployment of USS Coral Sea in 329 days.
Ford’s long stay at sea has raised questions about the impact on service members who are away from home for long periods, as well as about the increased stress on the ship and its equipment beyond the fire that started in one of the tanker’s wash bays.
When the truck left the Virginia coast for the first time in June, it headed for the Mediterranean. It was then It was redirected to the Caribbean Sea in October as part of the region’s largest maritime crowd in generations.
The carrier participated in the military operation in January to arrest Maduro. And then we will see more battle, Heading towards the Middle East With escalating tensions with Iran. The Ford participated in the early days of the Iran War from the Mediterranean before passing through the Suez Canal and heading to the Red Sea in early March.
Technically, the USS Nimitz crew was on duty and away from home for a total of 341 days in 2020 and 2021. However, this included extended isolation periods at the beach in the US aimed at helping prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
___
Associated Press writers Ben Finley and Konstantin Torobin in Washington contributed to this report.