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Last Nimitz-Class Carrier Named in Honor of Former President Bush

NAVSEA News Wire

12/13/2002

By Naval Sea Systems Command Public Affairs

WASHINGTON - The Navy's tenth Nimitz class aircraft carrier, CVN 77, will be named in honor of World War II naval aviator and former President of the United States George Herbert Walker Bush. Secretary of the Navy Gordon England officially named CVN 77 during a ceremony Dec. 9 at the Pentagon.

"USS George Herbert Walker Bush will serve as a worldwide symbol of our resolve," England said during the ceremony. "It will be a reminder of the 'Greatest Generation.'"

The future USS George H.W. Bush is presently under construction at Northrop Grumman Newport News in Virginia, in coordination with Naval Sea Systems Command's Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair Newport News. USS George H.W. Bush is expected to join the fleet in 2009.

George H.W. Bush is the last of the Nimitz class carriers, as the Navy begins development of CVNX, a new class of aircraft carriers. The CVNX will have a new nuclear power plant, improved electrical generation, a smaller, stealthier superstructure and a new system for launching and recovering aircraft.

Bush joined the Navy on his 18th birthday in 1942 as a seaman. Less than a year later, he received his commission and was designated a naval aviator, becoming the Navy's youngest pilot. He served in the Navy until September 1945 as an Avenger torpedo bomber pilot. During his Navy service in the Pacific during World War II, he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and three Air Medals.

Bush continued to serve the United States in public life, as a U.S. congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, chief of the U.S. Liaison Office to China and director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Bush served as Ronald Reagan's vice president and was elected president in 1988.

As commander in chief, he led the United States and a coalition of 30 other nations during the Gulf War. The war ended Iraq's invasion of neighboring Kuwait and liberated the people of the small Middle Eastern nation.

England has also designated Bush's daughter, Doro Bush Koch, as the ship's sponsor.