The world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the eighth ship to carry this proud name, the Big ‘E’ was commissioned on 24 November 1961. She is home-ported at NAS Norfolk, VA and underwent a major overhaul in the early ’90s, deployed with CVW-17 in 1996, completed a short overhaul in the summer of 1997, deployed again with CVW-3 in late 1998 to May 1999 to the Med and Arabian Sea regions during which time, they planned many contingency operations in support of the Kosovo crisis while in the Adriatic Sea, as well as participated in Operation Desert Fox while in the Persian Gulf. This is the “rainbow” patch first created back in 1996 on my cruise for Airwing 17.
