Navy: No early go for Stennis
Strike group on tap for late January departure
By Gidget Fuentes
Staff writer
The aircraft carrier John C. Stennis, shown here during pre-deployment training late last year, will deploy at the end of the month, as scheduled, according to Navy officials. — MC3 Paul Perkins/Navy
SAN DIEGO — The 7,500 Navy officers, sailors and Marines of the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis and its strike group got a holiday present when word came down that they won’t deploy early, as some reports have claimed.
“We are going to depart on our scheduled deployment date,” Lt. John Perkins, Stennis’ public affairs officer, said Thursday from the ship, which remains at its home port in Bremerton, Wash.
It’s “great news that we’re going as scheduled,” Perkins added.
A Navy spokesman confirmed the strike group’s status. “They’re not moving any time frame,” Lt. Trey Brown III, a spokesman at the Pentagon, said Thursday.
The Stennis Carrier Strike Group, led by Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn, has been slated to deploy in late January, when it will depart from its Kitsap Naval Base home and stop in San Diego to pick up the bulk of the carrier air wing. The strike group wrapped up its final pre-deployment exercises at sea in mid-November, and the crew then took the first of three two-week leave breaks before deploying.
Days before Christmas, however, Pentagon sources said the strike group got notice that it could “surge” and deploy in early January to the Persian Gulf, where it would beef up the naval forces already in the region, including the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, as a show of force to Iran.
At the time, the strike group’s crews began pulling its recall rosters to contact members, many of whom were vacationing or visiting relatives, “and informing people about what was going on,” Perkins said. “We had a good part of our crew scattered on leave.”
The crew began some initial preparations to ready the ship, which has remained in a “surge” status, for the expected early departure.
But shortly after Christmas Day, Perkins said, the word came down: No early go.
The holiday and pre-deployment leave, which extend into this week, weren’t canceled, however, and the entire crew will be back to normal working hours Jan. 10 for its final pre-overseas-movement period.
“It’s back to business as usual,” Perkins said.
Still, the future schedule for Stennis and the strike group remains flexible.
“We are the surge carrier, so we’re preparing to deploy on time, but if something did happen,” the ship will be ready to go, Perkins said.
The Stennis strike group includes Destroyer Squadron 21, led by Capt. Michael Salvato, and Carrier Air Wing 9, commanded by Capt. William R. Massey.
Its ships include Aegis cruiser Antietam, destroyers O’Kane, Preble and Hamilton and the fast combat support ship Bridge. Its squadrons include: Navy Strike Fighter Squadrons 146, 147 and 154; Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 323; Tactical Electronic Attack Squadron 138; Carrier Airborne Early Squadron 112; Fleet Logistics Support Squadron 30; Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron 8; and Sea Control Squadron 31.
