Sept. 24 marks 50 years since this ship’s launch and champagne christening, so its crew has been doing some back-of-the-envelope math: Just how many people — pilots, maintainers, aircraft handlers, nuclear engineers, boatswain’s mates, mess cranks, the lot — have served on Enterprise over its life?“Near as we can figure, it’s about a quarter of a million,” said the commanding officer, Capt. O.P. Honors. “That’s unlike any ship out there. It’s absolutely awesome.”
Enterprise is beginning the end of a career brimming with those kinds of superlatives: The world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which is also the Navy’s longest-serving active warship, which carries the most reactors ever put to sea — eight, two per screw, in the most complex such plant ever fielded — is working up for its 21st and final combat deployment. Then it will become the first U.S. nuclear carrier ever decommissioned.
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