Thanks to COVID the USS Eisenhower and CVW-3 Were at Sea for a Record 206 Days.
Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron ONE TWO THREE (VAW-123) Screwtops were deployed with the rest of Carrier Air Wing THREE (CVW-3) Battleaxe aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) for a record-breaking seven months (206 days) at sea. That’s right- seven months at sea. No port calls. 60,000 miles. The Strait of Gibraltar. The Suez Canal. The Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Bab el Mandeb (I had to look that one up- it’s at the south end of the Red Sea). The video, uploaded to YouTube by Screwtop JOPA, is awesome and features a Screwtops Hummer (side number 600) flying a single engine rails pass with the port engine out at 15:07 into the video. Check it out.
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The Rest of the Cast
During the 2020 Quarantine Cruise aboard the IKE, CVW-3 consisted of VFA-32 Swordsmen flying the Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet, VFA-83 Rampagers, VFA-105 Gunslingers, and VFA-131 Wildcats all flying the Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet, VAW-123 Screwtops flying the Grumman E-2C Hawkeye, VAQ-130 Zappers flying the Boeing EA-18G Growler, VRC-40 Rawhides Detachment 4 Mad Dogs flying the Grumman C-2A(R) Greyhound, HSC-7 Dusty Dogs flying the Sikorsky MH-60S Knighthawk, and HSM-74 Swamp Foxes flying the Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk.
VAW-123 Born on Date: 1945
VAW-123 can trace its lineage all the way back to 1945 when the squadron was formed as a Composite Squadron (VC-12) first flying Grumman TBM Avengers and later AD-3W and AD-5W Skyraiders. In 1956 the squadron was redesignated Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron Twelve (VAW-12) Bats. The Bats flew Grumman WF-2/E-1B Tracers beginning in 1961. Since 1967 the Screwtops have been flying variants of the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye. VAW-123 was embarked aboard the carrier Enterprise (CVN-65) for her last deployment before she was decommissioned in 2013. On 1 January 2020 the designator for the squadron (and the other Airborne Early Warning squadrons) was changed to Airborne Command and Control Squadron. It was a Screwtops Hawkeye crew that made the best of a bad situation back in 2016- also aboard the IKE.
