DATE: Friday, October 17, 1997              TAG: 9710170657

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 

                                            LENGTH:   71 lines

KENNEDY GROUP TRANSFERS AUTHORITY TO G.W. THE NORFOLK-BASED CARRIER OFFICIALLY BEGINS ITS MISSION AS OTHERS HEAD HOME.

``Ten days and a wakeup'' is all that's left before the thousands of men and women remaining in the 13-ship carrier John F. Kennedy Battle Group arrive home in Norfolk and other cities along the East Coast.

The sailing orders they will read today simply state: transit the Atlantic between Oct. 17 and Oct. 28, en route to home ports.

On Thursday, most of the ships in the Kennedy Battle Group turned over their responsibilities in the Mediterranean Sea to their 6th Fleet replacements, a similar-sized battle group headed by the Norfolk-based carrier George Washington and amphibious assault ship Guam.

The ``turnover'' took place off the southern coast of Spain, with officers and crew from the arriving ships traveling to their homebound counterparts to exchange ``the gouge'' - the unofficial lowdown on what they can expect during their months in the Med and the Persian Gulf.

The hours-long meeting at sea saw the carriers cruising side-by-side, helicopters crisscrossing overhead loaded with bombs, bullets and missiles that they carried from the Kennedy to the ``G.W.''

One early arrival, the amphibious assault ship Kearsarge, made it back to Norfolk on Wednesday, a reward for having to begin its six-month deployment two weeks earlier than the rest. The Kearsarge was needed off the west coast of Africa in response to crises in the former Zaire and in Sierra Leone.

In the Persian Gulf, a soon-to-be-Norfolk-based carrier also took up its watch.

The carrier Nimitz arrived earlier this week, several days ahead of schedule, to augment Operation Southern Watch, which enforces the no-fly zone south of the 33rd parallel in Iraq. Iran has recently increased tensions by staging military exercises in the gulf and flying over Iraq.

The Nimitz, the first of its class, is 22 years old. It spent its first 12 years based at Norfolk and the last 10 years operating out of Bremerton, Wash.

Under long-standing Navy plans, the 1,092-foot-long warship will shift its home port from Puget Sound to Norfolk six months from now, following an around-the-world deployment extending from the Pacific and Indian oceans to the Persian Gulf, Mediterranean and Adriatic seas and Atlantic Ocean.

The transfer is necessary for the Nimitz to receive a $2 billion overhaul during 1998-2000 at Newport News Shipbuilding, where the ship's two nuclear reactors will be refueled for the first time since the ship was commissioned in 1975.

The Kennedy Battle Group has been away from home since April 29, when a handful of ships steamed from Norfolk to join the Florida-based carrier and several other Mayport, Fla.-based warships for the trip across the Atlantic.

The carrier and the Norfolk-based combat support ship Arctic have seen their stay in the sultry Mediterranean punctuated by a rotation into the Persian Gulf. And most of the Kennedy group, as well as ships on independent deployment like the oiler Monongahela, have participated in several exercises with foreign navies.

Other ships making the 3,000-mile transit to Norfolk are: the dock landing ship Carter Hall; the transport dock Ponce; the guided-missile cruiser Thomas S. Gates; and the attack submarines Albany and Jacksonville.

Those heading to Mayport, in addition to the Kennedy, are the guided missile cruisers Vicksburg and Hue City, destroyers Spruance and John Hancock, and the frigate Taylor.

Included in the Kennedy's air wing are two F-14 Tomcat squadrons, Fighter Squadrons 14 and 41, based at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, and Airborne Early Warning Squadron 124, an E-2C Hawkeye squadron of radar control planes.

They are scheduled to arrive home on Oct. 27, a day ahead of the ships. ILLUSTRATION: U.S. Navy photo

The carriers John F. Kennedy, foreground, and George Washington

steam side-by-side Thursday off the coast of Spain during a

turnover, the time when officers and crew exchange information about

the deployment.

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