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US Navy Chief Timothy Keating disclosed Saturday that the US Navy is seeking to send home, within days, two of the three aircraft carrier battle groups in the gulf, and the first to head home will likely be the USS Kitty Hawk, whose home base is Yokosuka, Japan.
The USS Constellation, based in San Diego, California may go home soon, said Vice Admiral Keating Commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command and Commander of the US Fifth Fleet in a video telecast news conference from his gulf headquarters.
But he stressed no orders have been issued yet, and it was up to General Tommy Franks to decide.
Keating said the five carrier battle groups within striking distance of Iraq, three in the Gulf and two in the Mediterranean, will likely decrease the number of sorties in the days ahead as the air war over Iraq was winding down.
The public affairs officials aboard the USS Kitty Hawk said they would not comment on the future movement of the ship. In fact, the USS Kitty Hawk has decreased its sorties from about 80 to about 50 in recent days.
On Sunday, the USS Kitty Hawk flew 48 sorties, including 20 strike missions, according to Lt. Brook Dewalt, spokesman of the aircraft carrier.
Six F-14 fighters dropped eleven 500-poundlaser-guided bombs and two 1,000-pound Satellite-guided bombs in Iraq, Dewalt said.
Targets included a Radar site ammunition depot, tanks and military vehicles in northeast of Baghdad as well as Iraqi forces on the roads to Tikrit, Saddam Hussein, hometown in northern Iraq
The USS Kitty Hawk flew about 45 sorties Saturday, Dewalt said. According to figures released here, by 6:30 local time, three F-14Tomcat fighters dropped 11 laser-guided bombs on tanks, trucks, and other military vehicles in the areas north of Baghdad.
Kitty Hawk spokeswoman Nicole Kratzer said estimated that since the war started on March 20, the USS Kitty Hawk flew about 2,000 sorties, but she did not give the number of bombs dropped. According to calculation from the numbers already released, the war planes of the USS Kitty Hawk have dropped some 898 bombs, mostly laser-guided and satellite-guided bombs.
(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2003)
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