Hegseth visited Lincoln at sea a day before its scheduled homecoming. He said the strike group flew 3,693 combat sorties and delivered 1.37 million pounds of ordnance during operations from February through August.
The group conducted 40 consecutive days of combat operations under Operation Epic Fury, beginning February 28. It then joined the ongoing blockade of Iran in and around the Strait of Hormuz.
According to Hegseth, the strike group shot down 77 one-way attack drones, sank 64 Iranian warships and destroyed 21 anti-ship cruise missiles. He also credited it with defending against four fast-attack craft and explosive-carrying wooden sailing vessels.
Hegseth said the combat sorties were completed without a single aircraft mishap. He praised the carrier’s crew and Carrier Air Wing 9 for operating under combat conditions.
“We landed on the most beautiful of days, in the middle of an empty flight deck because [the air wing] is gone, and [you were] landing in the middle of the night in dangerous territory with a full flight deck during combat operations, and you didn’t miss a beat,” Hegseth told the crew. “That’s why we’re here; the world needs to understand that, [and] the country needs to understand that,” he added.
Lincoln’s uninterrupted stretch at sea surpassed the previous record of 206 consecutive days set by USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in 2020. The carrier had previously completed deployments lasting 294 days between 2019 and 2020 and 290 days between July 2002 and May 2003.
Hegseth presented the crew with the Presidential Unit Citation for the strike group’s actions during more than five months of Operation Epic Fury in the Middle East. It is the highest military decoration awarded to units for extraordinary heroism in action against an armed enemy.
