Welcome to the CavasShips Podcast with Christopher P. Cavas and Chris Servello…a weekly podcast looking at naval and maritime events and issues of the day – in the US, across the seas and around the world. This week…the U. S. Navy’s 248th Birthday seems a great time to check back with the U. S. Navy Memorial and the organization’s president and CEO, Retired US Navy Rear Admiral Frank Thorp, who will fill us in on how organizations like his help celebrate the men and women of the Sea Services.
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This Week’s Naval Round Up:
In a rare occurrence, two US Navy carrier strike groups on opposite coasts deployed within hours of each other. On the west coast on October 12th, the carrier USS CARL VINSON left San Diego to begin a Western Pacific deployment with Carrier Air Wing TWO, while on the following day, October 13th, the USS DWIGHT D EISENHOWER with Carrier Air Wing THREE deployed from Norfolk. The deployments each were months in the planning and are not surge deployments tied to current events. VINSON will relieve the Japan-based carrier USS RONALD REAGAN in the Western Pacific, while EISENHOWER is to take over from the USS GERALD R FORD in the Mediterranean Sea.
The FORD, which was in the final weeks of an expected six-month deployment with the US Sixth Fleet, was redirected from planned port calls in the western Mediterranean to head east following the attacks by Hamas on Israel that began October 7. The carrier, along with the cruiser NORMANDY and four destroyers, was on station in the Eastern Mediterranean by October 11.
The RONALD REAGAN with the cruiser ANTIETAM arrived at Busan, Republic of Korea, on October 12 for a port call, part of an increased number of US Navy visits to the ROK in recent months. The REAGAN exercised with Japanese and Korean warships just before calling at Busan.
Also in the Pacific, a US Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft carried out a transit of the Taiwan Strait on October 12, the fourth time this year the US has sent a P-8 through the strait’s international air space. China as usual protested the flight, saying the US, quote, “hyped it up publicly.”
The US Navy hospital ship USNS MERCY T-AH 19 left San Diego October 10 to begin a Pacific Partnership cruise that will feature stops in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Such soft power missions have proven successful for the United States, and are emulated by hospital ships from the Chinese PLAN Navy.
In new ship news, the attack submarine HYMAN G RICKOVER, SSN 795, was delivered from General Dynamics Electric Boat on October 11, and is scheduled to be commissioned October 14 at Groton, Connecticut.
The new amphibious transport dock ship LPD 32 will be named PHILADELPHIA, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced on October 12. Previous ships bearing the name of the City of Brotherly Love included the attack submarine SSN 590, decommissioned in 2010, and the 1930s light cruiser CL 41 who fought throughout World War II. LPD 32 at the moment is the last amphibious transport dock ship on order, after a DoD-directed so-called “strategic pause” in LPD procurement announced in early 2023. Construction of the $1.3 billion LPD 32 was ordered in March from HII’s Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
The Ingalls Yard on October 13 delivered the National Security Cutter CALHOUN WMSL 759 to the U.S. Coast Guard. The 10th NSC, or Legend-class cutter, will be based at Charleston, South Carolina. Only one more NSC, the FRIEDMAN WMSL 760, is under construction.
