The US Navy has announced who it will name two future ships after. This is a now consolidated American tradition which sees aircraft carriers named after former presidents. During a ceremony held at the White House on January 3, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro presented two future Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carriers which will bear the names Uss William J. Clinton And Uss George W. Bushhonoring the 42nd and 43rd presidents of the United States.
Traditionally the acronym “Uss” stands for United States Ship, literally “Ship of the United States”, exactly as the acronym “Hms” for English units indicates “Her Majesty’s Ship”. Del Toro said: “Their legacy will endure through these aircraft carriers, which serve as formidable platforms dedicated to safeguarding our national security and strengthening our resolve to protect this nation from anyone who threatens our freedoms and way of life.” The two new units, already announced and financed, will be the fifth and sixth of the new aircraft carriers of the class inaugurated by the USS Gerald R. Ford (Cvn-78), the only one in service, while three others are under construction: the USS John F. Kennedy, the new USS Enterprise and the USS Doris Miller.
Clinton’s naming was justified by his two-term service from 1993 to 2000, during which he led several military operations that occurred without suffering US casualties in combat, including Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti in 1994, the operation Deliberate Force in 1995 in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and the operation Allied Force in Yugoslavia in 1999. Finally, for ordering a Navy cruise missile attack on the Iraqi intelligence headquarters in 1993, after an alleged assassination attempt against his predecessor, former President George HW Bush. Former President George W. Bush was honored for his response to al-Qaeda’s devastating terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, in which 2,977 people died. After which he led Operation Enduring Freedom uniting NATO partners from 17 nations to target terrorist organizations in Afghanistan. Bush also created the Department of Homeland Security, signed the US Patriot Act, and executed Operation Iraqi Freedom which ousted the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and ended a government that lasted from 1979 to 2003.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III praised the measure. Still on the subject of naming, last January 10 the Navy also announced that a new pier for amphibious transport at the San Antonio base will be named after Lieutenant Travis Manion, who died in 2007 while rescuing two wounded Marines, an act that earned him the Silver Star. Regarding the new Enterprise announced six years ago, which will have the code Cvn-80, it will be the ninth US vessel to bear this name. The first, launched in 1775, was captured from the English in 1775 and then burned to prevent its reconquest in 1777. Meanwhile, another ship with this name was built in 1776 and sank the following year. In 1799 the third was born, this time completely American, which had its first battle against the vessel Tripolitania and ran aground in the islands of the Curacao archipelago of the West Indies in 1823. The next, of 1831, which displaced 192 tons, was sold in 1844 and replaced with the new 615 ton launched in 1874 and then finished her career as a training ship near the Massachusetts Naval Academy until 1909, when it was replaced by the unit that sailed between 1917 and 1919.
The first aircraft carrier of this name, of the Yorktown class, was launched as CV-6 in 1938 (cv stands for carrier-vessel) and withdrawn from service in 1947, surviving repeated Japanese attacks during World War II. Then replaced by the CVN-65 (the n in the acronym indicates nuclear propulsion) in 1961 and remained in service until 2013. The next one will be launched in 2028. This explains why, as always, even in the popular television series Star Trek and in films that followed exist a USS Enterprisethis time, at least for now, an imaginary spaceship with the acronym Ncc-1701.