It’s dark at night, in the middle of the Red Sea, but it’s not quiet. The roar of several of her F-18 Super Hornet fighter jets makes a deafening sound on the deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Sailors in bright primary-colored shirts go about their tasks on the flight deck. A military officer in a red shirt flips a switch that activates a Sidewinder missile on the outside of a fighter jet’s wing. It’s like removing the safety on a gun. The missile is now ready to launch. The pilot increments the jet forward, allowing the catapult officer to hook the nose wheel towbar to the shuttle, which then runs down a steaming slot to the edge of the flight deck.
A deck officer with a yellow flashlight lets the pilot know the time is up with a series of hand signals. When he throttled the jet engine to full power, the rib cages of everyone on deck trembled. The officer holding the title shooter pulls the trigger of the catapult, and with a powerful roar, the Super Hornet launches into battle in the Red Sea.
Reporter’s Note: IDF buried deep in Hamas tunnels beneath UNRWA headquarters
FOX News correspondent Mike Tobin aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea. (Fox News)
Each takeoff is a departure into battle. It all happened in an “arms war zone” close enough to Houthi-controlled Yemen to be within range of hostile fire.
“We’re always practicing self-defense here when it comes to threats that could be fired at us,” said Maj. Gen. Mark Miguez, the strike group’s commander.
Just because you’re defending yourself doesn’t mean you won’t attack. Often F-18s are launched with planned targets. Col. Marvin Scott, the carrier’s air wing commander, said the carrier’s pilots had already reduced the Houthis’ ability to bombard cargo ships and warships crossing the Red Sea. “Right now we’re primarily focused on their military capabilities, targeting their ability to see us, their surveillance radars,” he says.
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Red Sea (Fox News)
Many of the targets are “dynamic targets,” meaning they appear after the F-18 has taken flight. U.S. Central Command announced on Thursday that it had attacked four unmanned aerial vehicles and two anti-ship cruise missiles that the U.S. military was preparing to launch. On Friday, it shot down three drones near commercial ships in the Red Sea.
US, coalition forces destroy 6 Houthi attack drones
This photo provided by the Indian Navy on Saturday, January 27, 2024, shows a view of the oil tanker Merlin Luanda on fire after being attacked in the Gulf of Aden. The crew of a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker attacked by a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels are battling a fire aboard the ship caused by the attack. (Indian Navy, via AP)
Threats are constant, and although sailors have proven effective at launching missiles from the air, it is no easy task and failure is not an option. “We have to be right 100% of the time, but they have to be right only once,” Miguez says.
USS Eisenhower is one of six ships in the 2nd Strike Group. One of her is the cruiser USS Philippine Sea. It acts as a lookout for the attack group, with multiple sailors monitoring high-tech electronic equipment that detects incoming threats. In a matter of seconds, the “watcher” determines the nature of the threat and how to respond.
“It depends on what the threat is and what’s coming at us,” says Captain Steve Liberty, who defined what his ship is prepared for.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Sailors on the flight deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. (Fox News)
After all, their mission is as old as the Navy itself. Protecting safe maritime trade is why the Navy was created in the first place. “Freedom of Navigation,” said Captain Chris Hill of the Dwight D. Eisenhower. “This is something we’ve been doing since 1775, and it’s something we’re really good at.”
