That night, as the aircraft continued their round-the-clock shuttle over the beach, John, Lieutenant Navritril, and I joined Commander Smith for a short visit in his new quarters. The XO’s quarters aboard a Nimitz-class carrier are quite pleasant, though the lack of time that he gets to spend there more than makes up for the few pleasures. With Commander Smith sitting at his desk, the rest of us found comfortable spots on the couches, and we talked of how he had come to be here tonight. He talked of the path to command of a carrier, and why he supports nuclear propulsion for future U.S. flattops. He also spent a few minutes talking about the fine people and procedures that Captain Groothousen had left him. As the minutes became an hour, he talked of his experiences on the way to this job, and how many good jobs the folks coming out of the S-3 Viking community were getting. About the only thing missing was a good cigar and a snifter of brandy to go with it. But the U.S. Navy is “dry” and smoking is rapidly leaving our ships as an allowable vice. What stimulation Chuck Smith would find aboard the GW, he would have to find on his own. As the new mayor of almost six thousand people, he undoubtedly would over the next two years. As we rose, the chaplain came over the 1MC to announce the command to darken ship for the night and say a prayer. Heading up the ladders to my stateroom, I again was reminded why I love the Navy so much. Here were thousands of young men and women, going to sea to preserve the kinds of things I love America for. As I went to sleep, I felt the safety of knowing that good people were around me.
Monday, September 1st, 1997
JTFEX 97-3—Day 15: There has been a news blackout by the Allied coalition forces, which would seem to indicate that the planned invasion of occupied Kartuna is imminent. Meanwhile, the Koronan government is calling for their forces to prevail in the coming “Maximum Battle,” which will determine the fate of this region.
Almost two weeks earlier, Admiral Mullen had mentioned that Colonel Richard Natonski, the CO of the 24th MEU (SOC), was a “sneaky” kind of Marine. He proved it when he decided to invade Camp Lejeune before the sun went down. At 1600 (4 P.M.), the first elements of Battalion Landing Team (BLT) 3-6 began to hit the beaches and landing zones around the town of Temal (actually the communities around the New River inlet), and a battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division began to drop from the skies. I heard later that the Koronan troops (being played by several battalions of the 2nd Marine Division) had been caught getting ready to watch the opening game of Monday Night Football. The truth was that the colonel’s bold move had stolen a march on them; and with the Koronan force already heavily depleted by air and missile strikes from the GW group, the 24th MEU (SOC) made rapid progress.
Through it all, the round-the-clock flight schedule continued, although you could see the fatigue in the movements of the air crews and flight deck personnel. They had done their jobs well.
Tuesday, September 2nd, 1997
JTFEX 97-3-Day 16: The Allied coalition forces landed yesterday near Temal, the capital of occupied Kartuna. Elements of the 24th MEU (SOC) and 82nd Airborne Division have seized a bridgehead, and are awaiting the arrival of follow-on forces. The Koronan forces are reportedly in retreat, headed back to their original borders. Other reports indicate that the exiled government of Kartuna will return to Temal sometime late today....
I awoke this last morning of the exercise to the sound of Joe Navritril knocking on my stateroom door. As I opened up, he informed me with a smile that the exercise would be terminated in a few hours. Since the reoc- cupation of Kartuna was essentially complete, he had already arranged seats for John and me on the midday COD flight back to NAS Norfolk. After packing, I headed to the wardroom for a quick breakfast. Around 1000 hours (10:00 A.M.), Captain Rutheford came up on the 1MC and addressed the ship. “The ENDEX [End of Exercise] time has been declared,” he announced, “and we’ll be home tomorrow. I am therefore ordering an immediate suspension of flight operations. I hope everyone can take a breather before we take the GW back to the carrier dock at Norfolk.”
All over the ship, you could feel a collective sigh as the tension of the exercise passed.
During the next hour John and I paid our mess bills (yes, the Navy makes me pay to eat on their ships), bought a few patches and “zap” stickers from the squadron stores, and made our farewells. As noon approached, we headed up to the ATO, grabbed our float coats and cranial helmets, and waited for the word to move out to the flight deck. Soon after the command came, we marched up the stairs to the flight deck, where we had the opportunity to see one more impressive sight before the C-2A Greyhound taxied to the catapult. Now that the ENDEX time was now a matter of record, the ships of STANAFORLANT had requested to make a parade past the GW before they headed home to Europe.
The USS South Carolina (CGN-37) deploys on October 3rd, 1997. Part of the escort force assigned to the George Washington battle group, the nuclear cruiser was on her final deployment. She was decommissioned when she returned.
JOHN D. GRESHAM
Soon Witte De With, Admiral Peter van der Graaf’s flag flying on her halyard, came alongside. As the rest of the multinational force passed in review, the crew chiefs buckled us into our seats and raised the cargo ramp. Once again, the familiar sounds of the COD aircraft filled our ears, and we prepared for the thrill of a catapult shot. Two seconds and more than a few heartbeats later, we were airborne, flying northwest toward NAS Norfolk. Our trip aboard the GW was over. But for the personnel of the battle group, it was a new beginning. School was out and they were about to graduate to the job they had all sought. A trip to the other side of the world to support American interests overseas.
Deployment: The Acid Test
In October 1997, John and I drove south one more time to say good-bye to the men and women who had been our shipmates the previous month, to walk the flight deck one more time, and see how ready the GW was for her six-month cruise. The first thing we noticed when we stepped aboard was the non-skid coating up on the “roof.” During JTFEX 97-3, it had been worn to bare metal. Now it was factory fresh and ready to receive Captain Stufflebeem’s airplanes. Down below, supplies were being loaded and personnel were bringing aboard the last of their personal items. Most of the crew would stay aboard that night. As the sun set over the James River, we returned to our hotel and asked for an early wake-up call, so we could take part in a very moving ritual: the sailing of the GW battle group.
Friday, October 3rd, 1997
The gathering began before dawn, as the families and friends came down to the carrier dock at Naval Station Norfolk to see the GW off. For most, there was a quick trip to the McDonald’s across the street for an Egg McMuffin and some coffee. Most of the crew had stayed aboard the night before, including Lieutenant Joe Navritril, who had said good-bye to his family in Maryland several days earlier. All the officers and men were in their white uniforms, looking distinctly cooler than they had four weeks earlier. The tropical heat of summer had given way to a pleasant fall in the Mid-Atlantic region, and this morning was cool and sweet.
As a rose-colored sunrise began to appear over the eastern sky, the last of the preparations for sailing came to an end. Now it was time for a little public-relations work. Joe Navritril and several of his staff were herding television camera crews and newspaper reporters around the dock, shooting pictures of Captain Rutheford taking a ceremonial sword from a George Washington lookalike. Command Master Chief Kevin Lavin prowled the dock with Commander Smith, herding the last of the late arrivals aboard the ship. Both shook our hands good-bye, and headed aboard to get to their sailing stations. At the same time, the crowd of several hundred families and well-wishers began to hold up their signs of encouragement for their sailors on board the GW.
What followed was a duplicate of the sailing a month earlier, with Captain Rutheford again at the helm. With an HH-60G helicopter overhead for security and guidance, Chuck Smith ordered the last lines brought over and the brows raised. At precisely 0800 hours (8 A.M.), a signal was given, the American flag was raised, and over a tho
usand sailors in their best whites manned the sides. This impressive sight was made even more so by the emotions of the people left behind on the dock—some sobbing, some stoically silent, some talking nervously.
As the tugs pushed the GW into the channel, the crowd began to move to various points around the bay to watch the carrier head out. As John and I walked up the dock to our cars, we stopped and chatted with a young woman wearing a cruise jacket that must have belonged to one of the sailors on board. She just sat there watching the ship and her man move into the channel, then walked with us back to the cars. Her Sailor was a member of the CVW-1 staff, and they were planning to meet in Europe for the holidays. As we parted, though, John and I had the terrible feeling that she might not get the chance. The affairs of the world were going their usual chaotic way. Already that morning, the Nimitz battle group had been ordered to the Persian Gulf, to show the flag in the face of renewed tension between Iraq and Iran. And the crisis that would bring the GW to the Gulf was only a month away.
Now, though, the GW began to move down the channel, followed at ten-minute intervals by the Normandy, Guam, South Carolina, and Seattle. Again, at bases up and down the Atlantic coast, other ships of the battle group and ARG were sailing, planning to rendezvous off the Virginia capes the following day. CVW-1 flew aboard that afternoon, and the 24th MEU (SOC) was already loading down at Moorehead City, North Carolina. As I drove out of the Naval station several hours later, I passed by the British aircraft carrier HMS Invincible (R 05) and her battle group, which were making a port visit of their own. Ironically, these same ships would also wind up in the Persian Gulf several months later, along with the Nimitz and GW. Before that, though, there would be some of the planned exercises and port visits that had been scheduled before Saddam’s newest troublemaking.
The GW battle group and Guam ARG took part in Operation Bright Star 97, the annual joint U.S./Egyptian maneuvers in the desert west of Cairo. However, by mid-November, the crisis over the UN weapons inspectors had broken, and the plans to split the battle group were already in the works. The GW, Normandy, Carney, Annapolis, and Seattle would make a run through the Suez Canal and Red Sea, following a short port visit to Haifa, Israel. The rest of the group would stay in the Mediterranean with the Guam ARG to support operations in Bosnia, and generally “show the flag.”79 On the night of November 20th/21st, the GW and her escorts went to GQ, ran through the Straits of Hormuz, and joined the Nimitz group in flying patrols over Southern Iraq. The men and women of the battle group never did get their Christmas in Europe.
There was a personal cost to the GW and CVW-1 during these operations. On February 6th, two VMFA-251 F/A-18’s collided while on patrol. While both pilots ejected (albeit with injuries), Lieutenant Colonel Henry Van Winkle, the XO of VMFA-251, was killed. His would be the only life lost in the crisis with Iraq. The GW and Nimitz continued their vigil, until relieved by the Stennis and Independence groups. The Seattle was left behind for a time because of the need for extra logistics ships in the Persian Gulf. Moving back through the Suez Canal, the GW rendezvoused with the Guam ARG and her escorts, and headed home.
They arrived home several weeks later, and the eighteen-month cycle began anew. Along the way, more changes took place to the people that we had met. Captain Stufflebeem was relieved in late 1997, and became an aide to Admiral Jay Johnson in the CNO’s office. Captain Groothousen took over command of the Shreveport about the same time, and continues on the path to command his own carrier someday. Though the various crises continue, the cycle never stops. The battle groups work up, go out, and come back. Let us hope that they continue that way.
Aircraft Carriers in the Real World
As throughout this series, I’ve reserved a bit of space at the end of this volume to spin a yarn, to try to tell the story of what I think future carrier operations might be like. Though the following story is set some two decades in the future, it is based upon what 1 believe to be solid plans and ideas. I hope that it also says something about the evolution of our world, and how democratic nations will function in the 21st century.
Birth of a Nation: Sri Lanka, 2016
In the terrible summer of 2015, the great powers of the world—the United States, Russia, and China—all knew that the Indo-Pakistani War was likely to go nuclear at some point. They also knew that there was absolutely nothing that anyone could do to prevent it. Yet when India and Pakistan went to war over a series of escalating border clashes in Kashmir, the suddenness and magnitude of the catastrophe took everyone by surprise.
The roots of the conflict lay in over sixty years of deepening hatred. Border raids and warfare, terrorist actions, fighting on every level had been a part of the landscape since Pakistan’s separation from India after the end of British colonial rule. By the time fighting escalated in Kashmir in 2015, the more fanatical elements of the Indian military and political leadership saw no way to resolve the conflict using conventional means. Instead, they chose a do-or-die course. India fired eight nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles at Karachi and Islamabad, the two most important cities in Pakistan. The results were terrible, horrifying beyond the most exaggerated expectations of the almost forgotten Cold War back in the 20th century.
Both Karachi and Islamabad were bracketed by a quartet of five-hundred-kiloton warheads, set to airburst over the cities for maximum damage to buildings and people. In a matter of minutes, both cities were destroyed, with firestorms roaring outward from the explosion epicenters at over sixty miles an hour. Over twenty-two million Pakistanis were killed instantly. Retaliation was automatic and immediate. Though somewhat more limited in their arsenal than the Indians, the Pakistani armed forces also had missiles with nuclear warheads, and they used them. They fired a dozen missiles at India, each with its own four-hundred-kiloton warhead. The targets they selected were Bombay, New Delhi, and Bangalore—the high-technology center of India’s booming military-industrial complex. Over fifty-two million Indians died in the initial explosions. As prevailing winds carried lethal clouds of fallout over Southeast Asia, an outraged world demanded an immediate cease-fire. The demand was enforced by a unanimous United Nations Security Council resolution. Within days, that demand was backed up by the rapidly growing military presence of its members in the Indian Ocean.
A map of the activities in the Indian theater of operations in 2015 and 2016.
JACK RYAN ENTERPRISES, LTD., BY LAURA DENINNO
Pakistan’s provisional military regime immediately agreed to the cease-fire. They had seen that country’s government and fully ten percent of its population snuffed out, and had their hands full dealing with the aftermath of the Indian attack. India’s government, evacuated to a command center tunneled deep beneath a Himalayan mountain hours before its capital was vaporized, grudgingly complied. Nevertheless, they continued to denounce “external interference in our natural and inevitable leadership of South Asia.” It was clear to everyone in the world that the situation was unstable, likely to explode again at any time. By the time diplomats had ironed out the new cease-fire line in late 2015, the other nations in the region were beginning to consider their options.
Ever since the enforced partition of England’s imperial “Jewel of the Crown” led to the creation of India and Pakistan in 1947, conflict between the two newly independent nations had never died down. Other nations bordering the Indian Ocean took natural sides, with Muslim states supporting Pakistan, and non-Muslim ones supporting India. Yet after the nuclear holocaust that threatened not only India and Pakistan, but also the entire region, and possibly the world, the states in the region began to distance themselves politically from the two nuclear rogue nations.
Thus the small island nation of Sri Lanka, which had been under virtual Indian control since the partition, took initial steps to remove itself from India’s sphere of influence. The reaction of India to Sri Lanka’s attempt to declare independence was quick and fierce. India was determined to retain control of the island nation; and might even have man
aged to do so if the rivalry of the island’s Sinhalese and Tamil populations had followed its traditional course. The Indian government had learned the art of “divide and rule” all too well during two centuries of English domination. After independence was declared in India, the ruling class put those lessons to good use, playing the divergent interests and goals of many minority groups off against each other in order to keep a firm grip on national affairs. But the current disaster had changed the Indian subcontinent forever. And in the days that followed, India would discover that the old rules had changed.
Aboard the Command Ship USS Mount McKinley (LCC-22), Two Hundred Fifty Nautical Miles (NM) Northeast of Diego Garcia, February 4th, 2016
Vice Admiral Matt Connelly was always happiest when he was at sea. His current post as commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, and the naval component commander (NAVCENT) for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), had kept him out at sea for months now, overseeing a mission vital to his county and the world. He was in charge of the Navy’s ships and aircraft in a place that was as geographically far as you could go from the miserable climate and politics of Washington, D.C. Even better, he was a real fleet commander, in charge of real personnel, ships, and aircraft doing a critical mission in an area of great tension. Best of all, his ships and aircraft were the newest and best in the fleet. Given where he was and what he was doing, nothing less was acceptable. India was poised on the brink of another war, possibly even another nuclear war. His success or failure in achieving his mission might determine the fate of this part of the world.