US Navy’slargest aircraft carrierreturning to US after extended deployment in Mediterranean | CNN...

The US Navy is pulling the world’s largest warship, sent to the eastern Mediterranean Sea after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, back to the United States as it reevaluates its global force requirements, the US Sixth Fleet said in a statement Monday.

The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford will head back to its homeport of Norfolk, Virginia, after its first combat deployment, an eight-month cruise that began on May 2, the statement said.

The Ford – described by a Navy spokesperson as the “most adaptable and lethal combat platform in the world” – was commissioned in 2017 and is the US Navy’s newest aircraft carrier and the lead ship in the Navy’s first new carrier class designed in over 40 years.

The 100,000-ton warship, with a contingent of F/A-18 Super Hornet jet fighters aboard, arrived off the coast of Israel in the days following Hamas’ terror attacks that killed more than 1,200 people.