The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is returning home after three deployment extensions due to its need to move to defend Israel following the events of October 7.
USNI News reports:
USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is now set to depart the Eastern Mediterranean and return to Naval Station Norfolk, Va., after its deployment was extended [three times] by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, according to the announcement.
“In the coming days, the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group will redeploy to its home port as scheduled to prepare for future deployments,” reads the statement from U.S. 6th Fleet.
Ford’s move back to its Naval Station Norfolk, Va., homeport follows the move of amphibious warships USS Bataan (LHD-5) and USS Carter Hall (LSD-50) from the Red Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean to rejoin USS Mesa Verde (LPD-19) after five months in the Middle East, USNI News reported last week. The ARG will be joined by an unspecified number of guided-missile destroyers to augment the formation, two defense officials confirmed to USNI News.
A 244-day deployment is a serious undertaking for a ship and crew and, from all appearances, the next-generation carrier acquitted itself well. Already in October, the Ford had managed 6,922 launches and recoveries, a worthy test of the ship’s historically troubled electromagnetic catapults. A steam catapult carrier, the USS Carl Vinson (my former ship), had similar numbers after eight months deployed in 2022 (7,702 launches).
The Ford‘s deployment managed two necessary functions. The first: We had a capital ship on hand at a critical moment following Hamas’s brutal incursion into the south of Israel. In other words, the promising but raw first-round draft pick held its own when our ally sorely needed friendly aircraft and recon while it recovered itself. The second: the Ford proved itself to be an asset for American seapower that has been criticized and diminished of late. That the ship did as well as it did is a credit to her crew (who almost certainly had to do some redneck stuff to keep things spinning and heard the call for surf and turf three times and dealt with the despondency that comes with extended deployments and tough steak).
A job well done.