US Navy to shift carrier Washington to Japan

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From DefenseNews

 

U.S. Navy To Shift Carrier George Washington to Japan

By ANDREW SCUTRO

 

A newly overhauled aircraft carrier George Washington will be home-ported in Asia. “The Navy has slotted George Washington to relieve Kitty Hawk in 2008 in Yokosuka,” a senior U.S. defense official told Navy Times.

 

The official announcement from the U.S. Navy is expected in the next few weeks, pending shifts in the massive restructuring plan known as the Quadrennial Defense Review.

 

“Navy is waiting until there’s closer understanding of how the QDR is coming until they make a final carrier force distribution,” the official said.

 

News of the move ends speculation about which Nimitz-class carrier will move to Japan. The decision was first reported Nov. 18 in The Virginian-Pilot newspaper of Norfolk, Va.

 

For years, Japanese officials refused home-porting a nuclear-powered carrier due to the American atomic bomb attacks in 1945 as well as other political and environmental concerns. Recent published reports also noted Japanese sensitivity to such ship names as Truman, the president who decided to drop the atomic bombs.

 

Such resistance put Navy planners in a bind. The conventionally powered Kitty Hawk was commissioned in 1961 and needs replacing, but there are no other viable non-nuclear carriers in the inventory.

 

But in late October, the U.S. announced its firm intent to replace a scrapyard-bound Kitty Hawk with a Nimitz-class carrier.

 

“When she comes out of Japan, the Navy will decommission her,” the official said.

 

Current Navy planning positions five carriers on the East Coast and keeps six in the Pacific. With the QDR underway, further shifts are possible.

 

Certainly tied to the QDR are plans to retire the 38-year-old John F. Kennedy, the other non-nuclear carrier. Earlier in the year, federal lawmakers tied the Kennedy’s fate to QDR results, forcing the Navy to hold off retiring the ship until six months after the QDR concludes.

 

As Kitty Hawk winds down, George Washington has been gearing up. It’s reaching the end of a yard period in Newport News, Va., that began in January.

 

The GW is due to rejoin the fleet in early 2006.

 

Part of the decision to send the GW forward had to do with carrier maintenance schedules, according to a Navy source. The GW will leave the yard in mid-December, making it ready for deployment when Kitty Hawk is due to come out of Japan in the summer of 2008.

 

Lt. Cmdr. Bill Speaks, the GW public affairs officer, said the ship has undergone major upgrades while in the yard.

 

The $400 million overhaul installed 1,000 new computers, 16 servers, a new computer operating system, a new Close-In Weapons System, a Rolling Airframe Missile launcher, communications and radar upgrades, as well as a refurbished and improved flight deck.

 

Speaks would not comment on any upgrades to the GW nuclear propulsion system that might allow it to stay forward.

 

As for the big news on the waterfront, Speaks would not confirm whether or not the crew knew anything about the plans for their ship.

 

“It’s a rumor, so it’s not something I discuss,” he said by telephone.