Image: Sailors on the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) man the rails on the flight deck while pulling into the carrier’s homeport of Bremerton following nine months of operation. (CREDIT: Hunter Boyd, DVIDS)
On a suitably drizzly mid-December evening, the world’s oldest active nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz (CVN-68), tied up at her homeport at Naval Base Kitsap, in Bremerton, for the final time, wrapping up her 51-year career in the US Navy and a nine-month-long military deployment.
In May of this year, “Old Salt,” as she is affectionately known by her crew, will be officially retired and decommissioned following a half-century of service. Later this year, the carrier will sail around South America and make its final stop in Norfolk, VA, where the Navy will begin the process of retiring the 1,092-foot long, 112,000-ton warhorse.
After a decommissioning ceremony in Norfolk, the Navy said the carrier will begin the year-long Ship Terminal Off-load Program (STOP) process of defueling, recovery of all useful on-board materials, and the safe removal of the ship’s two Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors, which will be performed by Huntington Ingalls Industries in Newport News, VA. After that, the vessel is scheduled to be dismantled for scrap.
During her final deployment, Nimitz was a part of Carrier Strike Group 11, spending three months in the Indo-Pacific Command area and another four months in US Central Command, supporting operations in the US 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleets. In this role, the carrier helped set conditions that enabled the Iran-Israel ceasefire and helped strike Islamic State targets in Somalia.
“We have traveled more than two-thirds of this planet during this nine-month deployment,” said Rear Admiral Fred Goldhammer, commander of Strike Group 11, in a recent Navy release. “I cannot overstate the positive impact Nimitz Strike Group has made as part of our mission to maintain peace through strength by sustaining credible deterrence alongside our allies and partners.”
Named after Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, former Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet in World War II, CVN-68 first entered service in 1975 as the flagship vessel of its own “Nimitz-class” of nuclear carriers, numbering 10 in total. In her career, the carrier was deployed 30 times, participating in naval action during the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979 and 1980, Operation Desert Storm in 1991, Operation Southern Watch in 1993 and 1997, Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2005, and Operation Enduring Freedom in 2013.
Nimitz was homeported in Naval Station Norfolk for 12 years before being relocated to Naval Base Kitsap in 1987. Her homeport was moved again to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego, CA, in 2001 and then again to Everett, WA, in 2012. “Old Salt” finally returned to Bremerton for good in 2015.
The official replacement of Nimitz will be the new USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), the second carrier in the Ford-class of “supercarriers,” which is scheduled to be commissioned in March 2027. Bremerton is now the homeport for another Nimitz-class carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, which is currently being serviced at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard through the rest of this year.
