The carrier and more than 4,500 sailors and Marines returned to Naval Air Station North Island on Thursday after a deployment that included the Iran war.
The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln returned to San Diego on Thursday, docking at Naval Air Station North Island after 321 days away. CBS News reported that more than 4,500 sailors and Marines were aboard, and that hundreds of relatives waited on the pier as the ship came in.
The Lincoln carrier strike group had been deployed for more than 10 months, including more than 250 uninterrupted days at sea this year, CBS News said. Much of that time was in the Middle East, where the carrier and its escorts supported the U.S. war with Iran. A U.S. Pacific Command photo caption said the ship, flagship of Carrier Strike Group 3, was returning from operations in the U.S. 5th and 7th Fleet areas.
CBS News described sailors standing at attention on deck during the approach, then waving and calling people on the pier. It reported one reunion in which McKenzie Adkins held her 10-week-old son Declan while waiting for her husband, Alexander, who was meeting the child for the first time.
The docking is the arrival that defense officials had said was due on Thursday. It is separate from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's earlier flight-deck visit while the ship was still at sea. CBS News did not report a new operational order tied to the homecoming.
The Pacific Command release treated the photograph of a sailor reuniting with a relative as cleared public-domain imagery. Neither account published a count of how many crew members were still deployed elsewhere.
People Sentiments Mixed
- Families on the pier cheered as the ship pulled in, CBS News reported.
- McKenzie Adkins waited with a 10-week-old son for a first meeting with his father.