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CNN Sunday Morning

USS Vinson Stalks Arabian Sea

Aired October 14, 2001 - 07:27   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: While the Northern Alliance front remains stationary, U.S. Navy ships are moving today through the Suez Canal and Red Sea. They are heading for a possible rendezvous with a larger U.S. fleet in the Arabia Sea. And that's where at least one U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier is stationed and being resupplied after a full week of war. CNN's senior international correspondent Walter Rodgers is aboard the USS Carl Vinson.

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WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): A U.S. Navy supply ship lumbers through a morning fog in the Arabian Sea. A stern, the nuclear aircraft carrier Carl Vinson stalks, hungering and thirsting after a million gallons of jet fuel and more bombs. The onboard supply having been diminished by a week of bombing in Afghanistan.

All week, the warplanes of the Vinson pick their way through the target list in Afghanistan. Friday, the bombing paused briefly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Captain's on the bridge.

RODGERS: On the Vinson's bridge, a ship's brain center, officers huddle, reflecting on the destruction they rained down on the Taliban and planning more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Setting a course for zero, nine, zero degrees.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Setting a course zero, nine, zero degrees. Eye, sir.

RODGERS: This resupply and replenishment of a carrier group so early in the war was only a matter of the warships catching their breath according to the skipper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to stay locked and cocked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Attention bunkhouse, the Princeton is making their approach to the starboard side of the Sacramento.

RODGERS: From the decks of the supply ship, Sacramento, more bombs were taken aboard; enough explosives are dangling here to sink a dozen warships. Sometimes they land frighteningly hard. On decks semi-foreman negotiate this ballet of the elephants on the high sea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: India, Victor, Echo, (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

RODGERS: Just as tradition bound: the ship's navigators.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Basically, it's just you and the chart and a sexton and a little bit of savvy about you're going and that's about it. That really hasn't changed since the days of Captain Cook.

RODGERS: Two ships tethered surge on, only 180 feet apart. But here Navy tradition changes big time. A master helmsman, a woman, maintains that precarious separation. Many of these helmsmen are women ending forever any sexist jokes about women drivers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If I can drive an aircraft carrier, I think I drive your truck anywhere.

RODGERS: Helicopters dropping supplies in high winds on moving ships are but another reminder of the constant risks at sea, as if that were needed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy Rosary is now being held in the ship's chapel.

RODGERS (on-camera): In times of conflict, they say a ship's crew does tend to take the chaplain's prayers a bit more seriously. And at the end of the first week of the war on terrorism, this warship did indeed come through without a scratch.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, aboard the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea.

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