Aircraft Carriers III
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Full story in the posted link above.
Thousands of sailors from the Ford Carrier Strike Group were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation today for their active role in the war with Iran, where they dealt with constant threat of enemy attack while carrying out or coordinating hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presented the Presidential Unit Citation to the crews in Norfolk, Virginia. According to the , signed by Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao, the award is for “outstanding performance in action against enemy forces from 28 February to 1 May 2026 in Support of Operation Epic Fury. The personnel of Carrier Strike Group Twelve distinguished themselves by outstanding warfighting prosecution while engaged in sustained combat operations against a determined enemy.”
The award was given as the Ford, the Navy’s largest aircraft carrier, returned to its home port in Norfolk after . The welcome home ceremony was attended by Hegseth, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle and others.
The Presidential Unit Citation is the military’s . The citation is extremely rare, with recipients being troops who have participated in some of the biggest operations in the military, such as 1st Marine Division, which received the Presidential Unit Citation for the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in 1950, or 2nd Ranger Battalion for its actions on D-Day in 1944.
Along with the titular carrier, the Ford Carrier Strike Group included the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers the USS Winston S. Churchill, the USS Bainbridge and USS Mahan, with other ships joining and leaving over the course of its 326-day deployment. Nine squadrons make up Carrier Air Wing Eight, which returned home earlier this week.
According to the citation, the strike group played a varied and active role in combat operations, with units within it coordinating strikes on Iranian warships and land targets, as well as carrying out more than 1,700 air sorties. Notably, the citation says that the strike group did all of this while “under persistent threat from enemy missiles and one-way attack drones.”
The citation is the highest award given so far to the ongoing war with Iran. The conflict is still ongoing, with a temporary and fragile ceasefire in place as several ships including two other aircraft carriers, operate in the waters around the Middle East.
Seems like the fire suppression system in Ford didn't work back in the laundry system fire, the damage was actually pretty bad. Some shots from CNN.
Exclusive: Video reveals damage from fire on US aircraft carrier after sources say fire control system failed
When a fire burned aboard the world’s biggest aircraft carrier in March as it took part in operations against Iran, the US Navy released a short statement saying the blaze had been “contained,” that two sailors had received medical treatment for “non-life-threatening injuries” and that the carrier was “fully operational.”
But new video obtained by CNN makes clear the fire was more severe and damaging than the Navy suggested. Bunks where sailors slept were totally destroyed, the video shows. What remained of the beds was charred, twisted metal beneath a ceiling also apparently hollowed out by the inferno. Wires dangled from the ceiling and heaps of ashes littered the ground around the bunks, according to the video.
“I seriously thought we were going to lose the ship,” one sailor aboard the ship, the USS Gerald R. Ford, told CNN, describing how he felt while fighting the fire. “It’s either fight or die.”
The ship’s fire-suppression system failed to work, leaving the sailors scrambling to put out the blaze, according to the sailor and a senior US official familiar with the incident.
The senior US official told CNN that the Navy’s public statement downplayed the impact the fire had on the Ford as it was in the Red Sea supporting US military operations against Iran, as the fire did have an effect on capabilities. Two days passed before the Ford was able to fly sorties again, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle , and the ship was forced to head to port in Greece for temporary repairs.
Asked about the extent of the fire and the fire control system’s failure to function, a Navy spokesperson told CNN, “The investigation of the fire is ongoing.”
It took the Ford’s crew about 30 hours to put out the fire, clean it up and prevent it from reigniting, and roughly 600 sailors lost access to their bunks due to the damage, CNN previously .
“It shouldn’t have gotten that bad. The fire-suppression system built into the ship should have put it out,” the sailor said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from the Navy. “Everybody — me included — helped put the fire out.”
Videos obtained by CNN and accounts of sailors on the Ford paint the clearest public picture yet of the adversity that sailors experienced during a record-breaking, 11-month deployment that included the war with Iran and the US military operation in Venezuela.
“Big fires are always a challenge, and this was significant — laundry and dryer-based fire,” Caudle told CNN after the Ford returned to its home port in Virginia. “The crew handled that so well, and they fought it brilliantly and courageously and basically was back in the fight within a matter of days.”
The $13-billion ship was central to US military operations against Iran. Pilots aboard the Ford flew wave after wave of bombing sorties that hammered Iranian targets. But the massive carrier wasn’t solely on the offensive.
The carrier strike group that includes the Ford was under “persistent threat from enemy missiles and one-way attack drones,” a to the group said.
The sailor interviewed by CNN recalled at one point, when the Ford was in the Red Sea, seeing an orange streak in the sky as Iranian munitions appeared on the horizon. When Iranian missiles or drones would come within a certain range of the Ford, the ship would “sound an alert, telling us to expect to get hit and do damage control,” the sailor said.
The fire wasn’t the only issue during the deployment. The ship’s toilets were repeatedly clogged. Another video from aboard the Ford obtained by CNN shows human waste filled to the brim of toilet after toilet.
“If you were in the forward section of the ship, you’d have to walk all the way to the aft section, just to find a toilet that worked,” the sailor said.
The fallout from the fire could’ve been worse. Hunter Stires, who served as a maritime strategist to the then-Navy secretary until 2025, said the ship’s quick recovery from the fire was a testament to the crew’s training and resiliency amid a record-breaking deployment.
“Fire and flooding are the two greatest dangers aboard any ship,” Stires told CNN. “The US Navy, to its credit, has an organizational culture and design philosophy that is relentlessly focused on damage control preparation and system redundancy in order to assure ship survivability.”
“War and battle damage is inherently unpredictable,” Stires said, when asked about the failure of the fire-suppression system. “You don’t know what is going to break,” he said, adding that’s why training and preparing sailors is so important.
Commissioned into the Navy in 2017, the Ford is the newest and most technologically advanced of the 11 US nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and has become a symbol of the strength, and limits, of US naval power.
The Ford’s electronic catapult system allows it to launch anything from small drones to big aircraft, giving commanders an array of firepower options, Brent Sadler, a 26-year veteran of the Navy and former submarine officer, previously told CNN. The other 10 US aircraft carriers don’t have that capability, according to Sadler.
The Ford’s deployment, which when it returned to Norfolk, Virginia, in May, also saw the ship help with the US operation to capture former . The deployment — the longest operational one by a carrier since the Vietnam War — also included stops in the Mediterranean and Norway.
The Ford is now looking at an extended phase of maintenance from all of the wear-and-tear of the voyage, including additional repairs related to the fire. One US official told CNN it could be a least a year before the Ford is ready to sail again, and that other ships may have to fill the gap.
Exclusive: Video reveals damage from fire on US aircraft carrier after sources say fire control system failed
When a fire burned aboard the world’s biggest aircraft carrier in March as it took part in operations against Iran, the US Navy released a short statement saying the blaze had been “contained,” that two sailors had received medical treatment for “non-life-threatening injuries” and that the carrier was “fully operational.”
But new video obtained by CNN makes clear the fire was more severe and damaging than the Navy suggested. Bunks where sailors slept were totally destroyed, the video shows. What remained of the beds was charred, twisted metal beneath a ceiling also apparently hollowed out by the inferno. Wires dangled from the ceiling and heaps of ashes littered the ground around the bunks, according to the video.
“I seriously thought we were going to lose the ship,” one sailor aboard the ship, the USS Gerald R. Ford, told CNN, describing how he felt while fighting the fire. “It’s either fight or die.”
The ship’s fire-suppression system failed to work, leaving the sailors scrambling to put out the blaze, according to the sailor and a senior US official familiar with the incident.
The senior US official told CNN that the Navy’s public statement downplayed the impact the fire had on the Ford as it was in the Red Sea supporting US military operations against Iran, as the fire did have an effect on capabilities. Two days passed before the Ford was able to fly sorties again, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle , and the ship was forced to head to port in Greece for temporary repairs.
Asked about the extent of the fire and the fire control system’s failure to function, a Navy spokesperson told CNN, “The investigation of the fire is ongoing.”
It took the Ford’s crew about 30 hours to put out the fire, clean it up and prevent it from reigniting, and roughly 600 sailors lost access to their bunks due to the damage, CNN previously .
“It shouldn’t have gotten that bad. The fire-suppression system built into the ship should have put it out,” the sailor said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from the Navy. “Everybody — me included — helped put the fire out.”
Videos obtained by CNN and accounts of sailors on the Ford paint the clearest public picture yet of the adversity that sailors experienced during a record-breaking, 11-month deployment that included the war with Iran and the US military operation in Venezuela.
“Big fires are always a challenge, and this was significant — laundry and dryer-based fire,” Caudle told CNN after the Ford returned to its home port in Virginia. “The crew handled that so well, and they fought it brilliantly and courageously and basically was back in the fight within a matter of days.”
The $13-billion ship was central to US military operations against Iran. Pilots aboard the Ford flew wave after wave of bombing sorties that hammered Iranian targets. But the massive carrier wasn’t solely on the offensive.
The carrier strike group that includes the Ford was under “persistent threat from enemy missiles and one-way attack drones,” a to the group said.
The sailor interviewed by CNN recalled at one point, when the Ford was in the Red Sea, seeing an orange streak in the sky as Iranian munitions appeared on the horizon. When Iranian missiles or drones would come within a certain range of the Ford, the ship would “sound an alert, telling us to expect to get hit and do damage control,” the sailor said.
The fire wasn’t the only issue during the deployment. The ship’s toilets were repeatedly clogged. Another video from aboard the Ford obtained by CNN shows human waste filled to the brim of toilet after toilet.
“If you were in the forward section of the ship, you’d have to walk all the way to the aft section, just to find a toilet that worked,” the sailor said.
The fallout from the fire could’ve been worse. Hunter Stires, who served as a maritime strategist to the then-Navy secretary until 2025, said the ship’s quick recovery from the fire was a testament to the crew’s training and resiliency amid a record-breaking deployment.
“Fire and flooding are the two greatest dangers aboard any ship,” Stires told CNN. “The US Navy, to its credit, has an organizational culture and design philosophy that is relentlessly focused on damage control preparation and system redundancy in order to assure ship survivability.”
“War and battle damage is inherently unpredictable,” Stires said, when asked about the failure of the fire-suppression system. “You don’t know what is going to break,” he said, adding that’s why training and preparing sailors is so important.
Commissioned into the Navy in 2017, the Ford is the newest and most technologically advanced of the 11 US nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and has become a symbol of the strength, and limits, of US naval power.
The Ford’s electronic catapult system allows it to launch anything from small drones to big aircraft, giving commanders an array of firepower options, Brent Sadler, a 26-year veteran of the Navy and former submarine officer, previously told CNN. The other 10 US aircraft carriers don’t have that capability, according to Sadler.
The Ford’s deployment, which when it returned to Norfolk, Virginia, in May, also saw the ship help with the US operation to capture former . The deployment — the longest operational one by a carrier since the Vietnam War — also included stops in the Mediterranean and Norway.
The Ford is now looking at an extended phase of maintenance from all of the wear-and-tear of the voyage, including additional repairs related to the fire. One US official told CNN it could be a least a year before the Ford is ready to sail again, and that other ships may have to fill the gap.
Don't be surprised if Nimitz is NOT decommissioned in May 2027 as scheduled.
USS Nimitz joins a robust, previously announced lineup of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard vessels, as well as participation from more than 50 allied and partner nations, converging on New York Harbor to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States.
As the most iconic serving aircraft carrier in the U.S. fleet and the lead ship of her class, Nimitz brings unparalleled historical significance to what will be the largest international maritime spectacle in U.S. history. Named for World War II Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, the carrier represents more than 50 years of active global defense, having played pivotal roles in missions ranging from Operation Desert Storm to Operation Inherent Resolve.
“Adding USS Nimitz to the International Naval Review 250 roster brings a legendary piece of American naval history and maritime dominance directly to the heart of this celebration,” said Vice Adm. Doug Perry, commander, U.S. 2nd Fleet. “For five decades, the Sailors aboard Nimitz have stood the watch, defending freedom and ensuring global maritime security. Having this iconic warship anchor in New York Harbor alongside our international partners will be a breathtaking tribute to our nation’s 250th anniversary and a powerful demonstration of American resolve.”
The arrival of Nimitz underscores the core themes of INR 250: celebrating the strength of international partnerships, showcasing the professionalism of the Sailors who make up the fleet, and honoring the deep, historical naval ties of New York City.
During the week-long event, Nimitz will be a centerpiece of the fleet following the monumental Parade of Sail July 4. While anchored, the ship expects to host distinguished visitors, and her crew of thousands of Sailors will engage with the citizens of New York and New Jersey through community relations projects, public events, and memorial ceremonies.
“The Sailors of USS Nimitz are honored to represent the Navy and our nation at INR 250," said Capt. Joseph Furco, Nimitz’s commanding officer. “This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to showcase the dedication, pride, and professionalism of ‘Team Nimitz’ as well as the enduring capability of this incredible ship on a global stage. We are humbled to be the iconic symbol of America’s unparalleled sea power.”
Additional details regarding ship locations, aerial reviews, and media availabilities surrounding Nimitz’s arrival will be released soon.
For more information about the INR 250, participating ships, and a schedule of public events, please visit website.