In the winter of 2002-03, USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) was forward-deployed in the Mediterranean as the United States prepared for war with Iraq. Her air wing — Carrier Air Wing Three (CVW-3), one of the most experienced strike wings in the fleet — was ready. When Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 20, 2003, Truman was there, launching combat sorties from the Eastern Mediterranean against targets across Iraq. It was her first combat deployment, and it placed a ship named for the man who rebuilt the postwar military at the center of the opening chapter of a new kind of American war.
The Ship
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) is the eighth ship of the Nimitz class, commissioned on July 25, 1998 at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. She is named for the 33rd President of the United States — the haberdasher from Missouri who dropped two atomic bombs, integrated the armed forces, saved South Korea, and rebuilt Europe, all without a college degree and without pretending to be more than he was. It is a fitting name for a carrier: direct, unpretentious, and more capable than it looks from a distance.
Truman is homeported at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, the largest naval base in the world. At 1,092 feet and over 100,000 tons, she carries an air wing of approximately 70 aircraft, a crew of roughly 5,000 sailors and aviators, and the full suite of defensive and offensive systems that make a Nimitz-class carrier the most capable conventional weapons system ever built. She was relatively new when she deployed for OIF — commissioned just five years earlier — and the 2002-03 deployment was a proving cruise in the most direct sense of the phrase.
The Deployment
Truman departed Norfolk in the fall of 2002 with CVW-3 embarked, transiting to the Mediterranean as the Bush administration continued its diplomatic and military buildup against Iraq. The carrier operated with the George Washington Carrier Strike Group, conducting exercises and presence operations across the Mediterranean while the UN weapons inspection process played out and international debate over the coming war reached its peak.
When the diplomatic track closed and coalition forces launched the invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, Truman's position in the Eastern Mediterranean put her air wing within striking distance of western Iraq. CVW-3 launched combat sorties in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, contributing to the air campaign that ran parallel to the ground advance that reached Baghdad in three weeks. The air component of OIF was one of the most precisely executed in American military history — thousands of aim points struck with minimal collateral damage by a combination of stealth aircraft, standoff weapons, and carrier aviation working in coordination that would have been impossible a decade earlier.
CVW-3 and the Aircraft
Carrier Air Wing Three brought a capable mix of strike aircraft to the deployment. F/A-18 Hornets provided the backbone of the strike mission, capable of precision attack with laser-guided and GPS-guided weapons. EA-6B Prowlers from the electronic warfare squadrons suppressed Iraqi radar and communications. E-2C Hawkeyes provided airborne early warning and battle management. S-3B Vikings handled tanking and maritime patrol. The combination gave the strike group the ability to find, track, and destroy targets across a wide area — day or night, in any weather — with a level of precision that had not been possible in previous conflicts.
The aviators of CVW-3 flew their combat missions from the Mediterranean, transiting several hundred miles each way to reach targets in western Iraq. It was demanding work — long sorties, in-flight refueling, coordination with ground forces and other air assets — and they executed it without the kind of losses that had characterized earlier air campaigns over heavily defended adversaries.
Life Aboard
For the 5,000-plus sailors aboard Truman during the 2002-03 deployment, OIF was the backdrop to a deployment that had all the ordinary features of carrier life: long days, short nights, the rhythm of flight operations, the mess decks, the mail call, the countdown to homecoming. The ship transited the Atlantic, operated in the Mediterranean, and eventually began the turn for home as major combat operations were declared over in May 2003. For the sailors who were aboard for the start of OIF, there was also the weight of knowing they were part of something consequential. Whether history would judge it well or poorly was a question for another time. In the moment, there was a mission, an air wing, and a ship to keep running.
If you served aboard USS Harry S. Truman or want to honor someone who did, browse the Truman 2002-03 cruise collection. The full Truman ship collection covers every deployment year in the store.
Legacy
USS Harry S. Truman has continued to deploy in the decades since OIF, accumulating a service record that now spans the full post-9/11 era of American naval operations — the Arabian Sea, the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, operations supporting NATO, and the ongoing presence missions that are the daily work of forward-deployed naval power. The 2002-03 OIF deployment was her baptism, and she came through it the way Harry Truman himself came through his hardest decisions: directly, without drama, and with the job done.