USS Bataan And USS Carter Rejoin Eastern Mediterranean Fleet After Half A Year In The Middle East

Amphibious battleships Bataan and Carter Hall sailed in the Suez Canal on Thursday after nearly five months of fully operating in the Middle East, the U.S. 6th Fleet declared.

The two vessels will join the amphibious transport dock vessel in the San Antonio class dubbed USS Mesa Verde. With the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (abbreviated MEU), the ship will re-aggregate to be the Amphibious Ready Group (famous as ARG) in the Eastern Mediterranean, mentions the statement from the U.S. 6th Fleet.

Since August 6, the pair of vessels associated with North Carolina’s 26th MEU have been operational in the U.S. 5th Fleet initially as a hedge against the commercial ship harassment by Iran’s forces and later on as part of the U.S. Navy presence force in the Red Sea following the Hamas attacks on October 7, in Southern Israel.

Bataan and Carter Hall stepped into the Persian Gulf on August 17 with a group of Marines and sailors trained as fly-on teams to safeguard merchant traffic in the Middle East. The two vessels departed from the Persian Gulf around mid-October 2023 and have been operating in the Red Sea since the end of October.

Mesa Verde, part of the three-ship Amphibious Ready Group, has operated independently of Carter Hall and Bataan since the trio was deployed in July. The amphibious warship from the San Antonio class was used in the North Atlantic and the Baltic Sea, reaching the Mediterranean Sea on October 3.

The move of Carter Hall and Bataan to the Eastern Mediterranean was initially planned for the last month, anticipating USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and its escorts getting home in time for the holidays. Instead of departing from the Mediterranean for the U.S., Ford’s deployment was extended by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for the second time in November 2023. As of Thursday, the Ford was deployed for nearly 240 days.

In the meantime, the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group has been operational in the Gulf of Aden, south of the Bab el Mandeb. On Tuesday, the super Hornets from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) interdicted a set of attack drones in the Red Sea.

Reference: USNI

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