Most warships come home with a fresh coat of paint. USS Abraham Lincoln came home with a scoreboard. When the Nimitz-class carrier eased into Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego on Thursday, 8 October 2026, its island was plastered with rows of drone and ship silhouettes under the words OPERATION EPIC FURY, the tally of a deployment that took the carrier to war.
The Navy's numbers are almost as loud as the paint. Over 321 days away, the ship supported more than 13,000 sorties by Carrier Air Wing 9, nearly 4,000 of them combat sorties, and the air wing dropped more than 1.5 million pounds of ordnance. Not a single aircraft or sailor was lost.
Datos rápidos
- Barco: USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), fifth Nimitz-class carrier, commissioned 11 November 1989
- Despliegue: departed San Diego 21 November 2025, returned 8 October 2026, 321 days (U.S. Navy)
- Ala aérea: Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9, more than 70 fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft across the strike group
- Sorties: more than 13,000, totalling 28,500 flight hours; nearly 4,000 combat sorties in Epic Fury
- Ordnance: more than 1.5 million pounds, according to the Navy
- Archivos: 208 uninterrupted days at sea between Guam and Oman, and 286 consecutive days at sea before reaching Thailand
- Otorgar: Presidential Unit Citation, presented by Pete Hegseth on 7 October 2026
What the paint on the island says
Kill marks on a carrier island are rare, and these are not decoration for its own sake. TWZ counted 103 one-way attack drone symbols and 34 ship symbols on the island as Lincoln arrived, with later photos showing additional marks, including ten for submarines. The drone silhouettes resemble Iran's Shahed-136, though they may stand for every drone type the strike group destroyed.
Those totals do not line up neatly with the official ones. The Presidential Unit Citation, which TWZ reported, credits the strike group with 77 one-way attack drones shot down, 64 Iranian vessels sunk, 3,693 combat sorties, 1.37 million pounds of ordnance and 450 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by its escorts. The Navy's own homecoming release speaks of more than 100 Iranian drone, missile and small-boat attacks defeated and more than 1.5 million pounds delivered. Some of the drone kills almost certainly belong to the destroyers rather than the carrier's jets.
The air wing's jets carry their own scores. A F/A-18F Super Hornet of VFA-41, the Black Aces, wears a submarine kill mark, and the squadron launched 421 missiles and bombs during Epic Fury. An embarked Marine Corps F-35C from VMFA-314 carries an even more varied tally, which The Aviationist reported as an oil tanker, three submarines, a surface combatant, a Shahed-type drone, an artillery piece and several ground-based launchers.
The Aviationist on X, sharing the kill markings on a VMFA-314 F-35C after Operation Epic Fury.
Ten and a half months, two blockades, one war
Lincoln left San Diego on 21 November 2025 and reached the U.S. Central Command area in late January. When Operation Epic Fury began, its strike group took the lead role on the southern Iranian coast as Commander, Task Force 50, supporting 40 days of major combat operations. After the 8 April ceasefire between the United States and Iran, the group switched to enforcing a maritime blockade of Iranian-flagged shipping in the Northern Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman.
It was not over. After Iranian attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz in July, Lincoln and CVW-9 supported strikes on Iran's coastal defence systems and cruise missile storage and launch sites, then helped enforce a second blockade until the strike group left the region on 22 August. Along the way, the ship spent 208 uninterrupted days at sea between Guam and Oman and 286 consecutive days at sea before its September port call in Pattaya, which the Navy calls record-breaking marks for modern carriers.
By the Navy's count, the carrier steamed more than 93,000 nautical miles, conducted 72 replenishments at sea and took on more than 20.5 million gallons of aviation fuel. Its crew supported more than 13,000 sorties by CVW-9 aircraft, totalling 28,500 flight hours. TWZ puts the deployment just short of the 326 days USS Gerald R. Ford logged earlier this year.
A citation, a welcome and a homecoming
The day before the ship docked, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth visited Lincoln and presented the strike group with the Presidential Unit Citation, the highest unit award for extraordinary heroism in action. Hegseth also used the visit to push back against media coverage that had, he argued, tried to turn the rust-streaked carrier into a symbol of a failing mission.
Pete Hegseth welcoming the crew of USS Abraham Lincoln home, 7 October 2026.
On the pier, the mood was simpler. Captain Keeler told Stars and Stripes that every sailor and Marine who left on the deployment was going home, with no loss of life, no loss of aircraft and no combat damage. For a carrier that fought a war, ran two blockades and set endurance records, that last line may be the most impressive mark of all, even if nobody will paint it on the island.
Sources: U.S. Navy, TWZ, Stars and Stripes, The Aviationist, Reuters
0 Comments