The USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is returning home after extended deployment defending Israel
WASHINGTON — After months of additional deployments at sea to provide protection to Israel, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier strike group will be heading home, the Navy announced Monday.
The Ford and its associated warships will be replaced by the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan and its associated warships, the USS Mesa Verde and the USS Carter Hall. The three ships were in the Red Sea and had been transiting to the eastern Mediterranean in recent days.
The Ford was deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean to be within striking distance of Israel since the day after the Hamas attacks on October 7. The aircraft carrier remained in the eastern Mediterranean while the accompanying warships entered the Red Sea, where they repeatedly intercepted incoming ballistic missiles and attacked drones fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited the Ford last month.
Since expanding into the Eastern Mediterranean, the Ford and the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower have been part of a two-carrier presence supporting the war between Israel and Hamas, underscoring U.S. concerns that the conflict will expand. The Eisenhower recently patrolled near the Gulf of Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea waterway where so many commercial ships have been attacked in recent weeks.
On Sunday, helicopters from the Eisenhower and its destroyer, the USS Gravely, responded to a distress call from the container ship Maersk Hangzhou, which was under attack by four Iranian-backed Houthi small boats. As the helicopters responded, the boats fired at them with crew-served weapons and small arms and the helicopters returned fire, sinking three of the four boats and killing their crews, U.S. Central Command said.
The incessant attacks on commercial ships have led some companies to suspend passage through the narrow Strait of Bab el-Mandeb, which connects the Gulf of Aden to the southern Red Sea and then the Suez Canal.