An EA-18G Growler assigned to Electronic Attack Squadron (VAQ) 141 prepares to launch from the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) as the ship transits the Luzon Strait, July 22, 2026.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Tyler Crowley)
The U.S. Navy’s only forward-deployed nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS George Washington (CVN-73), is en route to Vietnam after operating earlier this week in the disputed South China Sea. The carrier is expected to arrive in Da Nang on Thursday, with the port visit likely to continue through Monday.
The USS George Washington began its current deployment in May and spent much of the past month operating in the Philippine Sea before passing through the Luzon Strait and entering the South China Sea.
First Visit to Vietnam
in Three Years
The visit will make the USS George Washington only the fourth U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to call on Vietnam in more than 50 years. It will also be the first carrier visit since June 2023, when USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) arrived while serving as the forward-deployed supercarrier of the U.S. 7th Fleet, homeported in Yokosuka, Japan. On that trip, CVN-76 was accompanied by the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers USS Antietam (CG-54) and USS Robert Smalls (CG-62).
U.S. Navy aircraft carriers have made only two other visits to Vietnam in the modern era. USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) docked in Da Nang in March 2020, following the landmark March 2018 port call by USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), the first American aircraft carrier to visit Vietnam since 1975.
More recently, the America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA-7), joined by USS Robert Smalls (CG-62), became the last U.S. flattop to make a high-profile port visit to Vietnam, arriving in the country last December.
Da Nang Expanding Port Facilities
Da Nang now hosts Vietnam’s third-largest port system, behind only Saigon Port in Ho Chi Minh City and the Port of Hai Phòng. The port is undergoing a major expansion valued at more than $1.7 billion, a modernization effort that includes automated cargo-handling technology.
Plans also call for stronger road and rail links with industrial centers in the region, including in neighboring Laos and Thailand.
However, the improvements aren’t part of a naval expansion in the Maritime Southeast Asian nation, even as it is the port that has been frequented by U.S. warships.
“Hanoi has no interest in turning Da Nang into an anti-China outpost, nor is Vietnam likely to abandon its longstanding reluctance to enter formal military alliances. Instead, Vietnam is building resilience,” the Asia Times reported. “Better ports strengthen supply chains.”
Carrier Deployments During The Vietnam War
Although USS George Washington will be just the fourth aircraft carrier – not counting the USS Tripoli – to make a port call to Da Nang, it is worth noting that this is still more flattops that visited Vietnam than during the Second Indo-China War in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
In total, 28 United States aircraft carriers operated off the coast of Vietnam, at either Yankee or Dixie Stations, during the war. Instead, the vessels remained offshore in the Gulf of Tonkin and the South China Sea rather than docking in Vietnamese ports.
Active combat operations precluded routine port visits during the conflict, and no carriers docked or made any official “visits” inside the country.
The United States Navy’s USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was the first and only nuclear-powered carrier to be deployed to the region during the conflict, with the conventionally powered flattops USS Midway (CVA-41) and USS Hancock (CVA-19) having the distinction of being among the warships stationed offshore of Vietnam and participating in Operation Frequent Wind.
Both of those two aircraft carriers served as landing and refuge sites for evacuating helicopters and the thousands of displaced personnel during the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).
The visits by the U.S. Navy warships are a sign of the strong and growing defense ties between the United States and Vietnam, signaling the strategic realignment in the Indo-Pacific region, and a shared concerns over China’s maritime claims.
