ad left off, conducting missions and strikes to further whittle down Iraq’s defenses. It’s F-14D Super Tomcats of Fighter Squadron 31 (VF-31) “Tomcatters” also flew reconnaissance missions using the Tactical Air Reconnaissance Pod System (TARPS), gathering imagery for targeting intelligence.
The order-of-battle had changed dramatically since the carrier was last in-theater – more aircraft and ships had arrived, with Lincoln set to operate alongside Constellation and Kitty Hawk, the forward-deployed carrier based out of Japan. Two more carriers, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, would operate from the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Land-based Air Force warplanes, along with those of the United Kingdom and Australia, occupied airbases throughout the Gulf theater.
By this point, it was clear the U.S. was going to invade Iraq.
The main thrust of Operation Iraqi Freedom began on Mar. 20, but Southern Focus and special operations on the ground meant the fighting had been ongoing for some time. On the evening of Mar. 19, a long-range strike on Iraqi airfields in the far west of Iraq took place, involving warplanes from all three carriers in the Gulf, the Air Force, and the British Royal Air Force, along with special operations forces on the ground.
Abraham Lincoln’s F-14Ds, F/A-18Es, and the “legacy” F/A-18C(N) Hornets of VFA-25 “Fist of the Fleet” and VFA-113 “Stingers” launched strikes into Iraq on the first night, exhibiting far greater precision-strike capability than the Navy had back in the 1991 Gulf War. The Tomcats had recently received the D04 software update to deploy JDAMs and geared with the LANTIRN targeting pod for dropping laser-guided bombs (LGBs). The Super Hornets possessed the brand-new ATFLIR, which were fewer in quantity and proved somewhat problematic during the war, making the Tomcat-LANTIRN combination indispensable. As a side note, the Lincoln’s 2002- ’03 deployment was the only time F-14s and F/A-18E/Fs both deployed aboard the same carrier, making it a unique “super air wing” of sorts.
As Benjamin Lambeth assessed, the Super Hornet displayed its operational prowess in resounding fashion. The new, sophisticated strike fighter averaged only 15 maintenance man-hours per flying hour, compared with 20 for the “legacy” Hornet and a whopping 60 for the legendary Tomcat. Across the board, the Super Hornets also achieved an impressive Fully-Mission Capable status of 90 percent, compared with 87 percent for the F/A-18C, and 78 for the Super Tomcats. It was obvious the “Super Bug” was the future of U.S. Naval Aviation and the real deal.
For 17 days, CVN-72/CVW-14 continued to pound targets throughout central and southern Iraq, as Coalition ground forces advanced towards Baghdad. They comprised the “day shift” alongside Kitty Hawk, while Constellation was tasked as the “night shift.” On Mar. 31, the already-formidable air wing became even more so, as two F/A-18Es and two of the newer two-seat F/A-18F Super Hornets embarked aboard Abe from USS Nimitz (CVN-68) which was just days away from arriving and relieving Lincoln in the Gulf. Meanwhile, the battle group’s surface combatants and submarines unleashed Tomahawk cruise missiles upon Iraq.
Finally, the end came. On Apr. 7, with Nimitz on-station, Abe and her battle group were relieved, and they set course for home. There was one more surprise left – on May 1, off the coast of San Diego, President George W. Bush landed aboard Lincoln on an S-3B Viking, which had been used as an aerial refueling tanker, surface attack and surveillance platform by the air wing. It was quite a moment – one that would ultimately prove controversial, with Abe unfortunately serving as the stage.
That same day, Bush delivered a speech announcing the “end of major combat operations.” Behind the president on the ship’s island, however, was a large banner displaying the words “Mission Accomplished.” The invasion had already generated controversy; as the war persisted, failed to deliver a decisive outcome and the insurgency intensified, Bush’s speech was seized upon by his political opponen