The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush departs Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, on March 31 to begin operations for its scheduled deployment. (Derek Cole/U.S. Navy)
The aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush departed its homeport in Virginia this week to begin operations for its scheduled deployment as the U.S. weighs a potential ground offensive against Iran.
Bush left Naval Station Norfolk on Tuesday, the Navy said in a statement. The George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group includes Carrier Air Wing 7 and more than 5,000 sailors and military personnel, according to the service.
The carrier will join other elements of the group, including the destroyers USS Ross, USS Donald Cook and USS Mason, as it transits the Atlantic Ocean.
The Pentagon has not announced specifically where Bush will go, but the carrier reportedly will head to the U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations, which includes the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
It’s unclear if Bush will remain in the eastern Mediterranean or take up station in the Middle East in support of Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing U.S.-Israel operation against Iran in its fifth week.
The group’s “sailors are ready and able to do the nation’s bidding,” Rear Adm. Alexis Walker, commander of the strike group, said in the statement.
The carrier’s departure comes as President Donald Trump considers seizing Kharg Island, a Persian Gulf terminal for about 90% of Iran’s crude oil about 20 miles off the country’s coast and 350 miles from the Strait of Hormuz.
Seizing the island could give the U.S. much needed leverage in reopening the strait to oil tankers and other commercial ships. About 20% of the world’s consumption of crude oil and other petroleum products travel through the strategic waterway each day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The U.S. also is considering sending as many as 10,000 more troops to the region.
On Friday, the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli arrived in Middle East waters. The ship is the lead vessel of the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, which includes the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit and some 3,500 sailors and Marines, along with transport and strike fighter aircraft, CENTCOM said in a post to its X account on Saturday.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its escorts, the destroyers USS Frank E. Petersen, Jr., and USS Spruance, are in the Arabian Sea. Five other Navy destroyers also are operating independently in the Arabian Sea, USNI News reported Monday.
It’s uncertain when Bush will relieve USS Gerald R. Ford, which has been deployed for some 280 days, nearing a carrier deployment record held by Lincoln.
In that case, Lincoln was deployed for 295 days, returning to Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego on Jan. 20, 2020. That made the carrier’s deployment the longest in the post-Cold War era, the Navy said at the time.
On Monday, Ford remained in Croatia, according to the USNI News report. The carrier arrived to the city of Split along the Adriatic Sea on Saturday. The port call follows three days at U.S. Naval Support Activity Souda Bay on the Greek island of Crete for an assessment and repairs in the aftermath of a laundry room fire last month.
The Pentagon has not given any indication where Ford will go following its port call in Croatia. Since leaving Norfolk in late June, the carrier’s more than nine-month deployment has included duty in the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Red seas.
Its destroyer escorts, USS Bainbridge, USS Winston S. Churchill and USS Mahan, also have left the Middle East, having made the northbound transit through the Suez Canal, USNI News reported.
Bush, which completed a pre-deployment certification exercise March 5, was last deployed to NAVEUR-AF/6th Fleet in August 2022. The carrier returned to Norfolk in April 2023 after more than eight months on deployment.
Stars and Stripes reporter Lara Korte based in Germany contributed to this report.
