San Diego bids farewell to USS Nimitz as ‘coolest’ carrier in the Navy ends 50 years of service

Like a lot of Navy lore, the details are in dispute. But Jere Cordell, of San Diego, swears the beastly carrier USS Nimitz won an impromptu drag race against slender cruisers a half-century ago off Norfolk, Va.

“Nimitz smoked us from the get-go,” said Cordell, who was on the competing USS California at the time. “Flat-out beat us. I remember thinking, ‘That’s going to be a great ship.’”

He proved to be right about the 24-story carrier, which docked at its former home in San Diego Bay on Sunday at a bittersweet moment. It’s off-loading aircraft before it pushes on to Bremerton, Wash., to complete its final deployment. It will be decommissioned next year.

Veterans are lavishing praise on the ship, saying the Cold War-era flattop helped revolutionize the Navy’s ability to roam the world’s oceans and linger in distant trouble spots like the Taiwan Straight and the Persian Gulf.

It has a pair of nuclear reactors that can go more than 20 years without refueling. Conventional carriers, at the time, had to fill up every few thousand miles. Early on, the Nimitz was also faster and more maneuverable than its foes, giving it an edge as it patrolled the Middle East and Indo-Pacific.

In an unexpected twist, the Nimitz also became a pop culture star, appearing in movies, books, documentaries and video games. It started to become famous in 1980 with the release of the sci-fi movie “The Final Countdown,” which was largely filmed on the ship. The plot had the Nimitz traveling back in time, to the eve of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

“All of a sudden we were in the limelight,” said David Hill, of Rancho Peñsasquitos, who deployed three times on the Nimitz. “People asked us if we were in any scenes. This helped give Nimitz its cool factor.”

Far greater publicity arrived in 2004 when fighter pilots from the Nimitz reported seeing Unidentified Anomalous Phenomenon (think UFOs) about 100 miles west of San Diego. One of the pilots told a congressional hearing that what he saw was well beyond the “material science” of the time.

Sailors mostly enjoy the public attention. But the carrier’s legacy means more to Lt. Gabrielle Bonowski, of San Diego, currently a Seahawk pilot on the Nimitz.

The carrier “has shaped naval aviation for more than 50 years, and it’s been incredibly fulfilling to serve aboard a ship with such historic impact,” Bonowski said in an email to the Union-Tribune.

The Nimitz is the product of a technological chain reaction that began in the late 1940s when the Navy began to place jet aircraft on carriers. It wanted its ships to have unlimited range due, in part, to a new and deepening Cold War with the Soviet Union and tensions elsewhere in the world.

That led to the construction of the USS Enterprise, the nation’s first nuclear-powered carrier. It was commissioned in 1961 and became the first ship of its kind to engage in combat. The “Big E” launched airstrikes against the Viet Cong at a time when the Vietnam War was rapidly expanding.

The Enterprise, which had eight nuclear reactors, had built a great reputation by then, especially for helping to create a naval blockade of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

But the Navy wanted ships that more fully realized the promise of the Enterprise, leading to the creation of the Nimitz-class carrier. The name was a familiar one to many Americans. It referred to Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, who led the U.S. to win the war in the Pacific in the 1940s.

“It was important that his name was chosen because people of my generation and the baby boomers that followed knew that Nimitz was a warfighter,” said Brent Bennitt, of Coronado, who was commander of the USS Nimitz from 1987 to 1989.

Nine Nimitz-class carriers followed, including the USS Carl Vinson, USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Theodore Roosevelt, all of which are today based in San Diego.

The original Nimitz flattop was commissioned in 1975 and suffered some horrific setbacks. The first came in November 1979 after Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and took 66 Americans hostage. Some were released. Most were not.

The following spring, the U.S. sent eight Nimitz helicopters to the Iranian desert, where they were supposed to pick up commandos who would rescue the hostages. The mission was aborted due to mechanical failures and a sandstorm. Eight service members died when a helicopter collided with a C-130 transport plane.

Iran didn’t release the hostages until January 1981. Four months later, a Marine Prowler aircraft crashed on the deck of the Nimitz off Florida, setting off fires and explosions that killed 14 crew members.

The crash “sounded like the end of the world,” said David Hill, of Rancho Peñasquitos, who was sleeping in a berth below deck when it happened. “General quarters was sounded, and we were told this is not a drill. The impact made the whole ship shake.”

Those incidents have faded in time, replaced by the carrier’s reputation as a Johnny-on-the-spot, able to get places quickly and pitch in for long periods.

Historians say the Nimitz provided crucial air support during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when the U.S. drove Iraq out of Kuwait. The Nimitz later enforced the no-fly zone over southern Iraq. And in 1995 and 1996, the carrier helped keep international sea lanes open by deterring Chinese aggression against Taiwan.

The Nimitz also provided air support and strikes against Afghanistan during Operation Enduring from 2003 to 2005. This was during the early part of the carrier’s 11-year homeporting in San Diego.

The ship’s record does not surprise Bennitt. Its longevity does.

“I can’t believe it was 50 years ago when Nimitz was commissioned,” said Bennitt, who is 83. “It makes you come to grips with your own mortality.”