03:03 PM EST on Friday, March 3, 2006

By 13News

US Navy photo

USS Theodore Roosevelt passes the Rock of Gibraltar as it heads for home.

The ships and aircraft of the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group will return home next week from six months supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The more than 7,500 sailors left September 1.

On Thursday, March 9, the guided missile destroyers USS Oscar Austin and USS Donald Cook will return to Norfolk. On Friday, USS San Jacinto and USNS Kanawah will pull into port. TR will return the next day.

Several other ships will arrive at their East Coast ports late in the week.

As for the jets of Carrier Air Wing (CVW), four squadrons will fly home to NAS Oceana on Friday and two will return to Naval Station Chambers Field Norfolk. Other squadrons will return to Florida and Washington.

USS Theodore Roosevelt and CVW-8 launched 5,412 sorties totaling nearly 19,362 flight hours in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Maritime Security Operations (MSO). 

This was the final combat deployment of VF 213 and 31’s F-14 Tomcats, which will be replaced by F/A-18F Super Hornets later this year.

This was Theodore Roosevelt’s ninth deployment since commissioned in 1986, and the ship’s third in support of the Global War on Terrorism.