USS George Washington nuclear carrier to visit Da Nang, Vietnam

After operating in the contested South China Sea earlier this week, the United States Navy’s only forward-deployed nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS George Washington (CVN-73), is now heading to Vietnam. The carrier is expected to arrive in Da Nang on Thursday, and the port call will likely last through Monday.

CVN-73 began its current deployment in May and spent much of the past month in the Philippine Sea before transiting the Luzon Strait into the South China Sea.

First Visit to Vietnam in Three Years

The USS George Washington will be just the fourth U.S. Navy carrier to visit Vietnam in more than five decades, and the first since the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) made a port call in June 2023. During that visit, CVN-76 was accompanied by the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers USS Antietam (CG-54) and USS Robert Smalls (CG-62).

Previous carrier visits to Vietnam include:

• March 2020 – USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) docked at Da Nang.
• March 2018 – USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) made history as the first U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to visit Vietnam since 1975.

Additionally, the America-class amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli (LHA-7), joined by CG-62, made a high-profile port visit to the country in December 2025.

Da Nang Expanding Port Facilities

Da Nang is now home to the third largest port system in Vietnam, after Saigon Port in Ho Chi Minh City and the Port of Hai Phòng. Its port facility is undergoing an extensive expansion costing more than $1.7 billion, which 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 are not part of a naval expansion in the Southeast Asian nation, even as Da Nang has been the port most frequently visited 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. Better ports strengthen supply chains.” — Asia Times

Carrier Deployments During the Vietnam War

Although USS George Washington will be just the fourth aircraft carrier (not counting USS Tripoli) to make a port call to Da Nang, this still represents more flattops visiting Vietnam than during the Second Indo-China War in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

During the war, a total of 28 U.S. aircraft carriers operated off the coast of Vietnam at either Yankee or Dixie Stations. However, these 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, and no carriers docked or made any official visits inside the country.

Notable carriers deployed during the conflict include:

• *USS Enterprise (CVN-65)* – The first and only nuclear-powered carrier deployed to the region during the war.
• *USS Midway (CVA-41) and USS Hancock (CVA-19)* – Conventionally powered flattops stationed offshore, both of which served as landing and refuge sites for evacuating helicopters and displaced personnel during the fall of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) as part of Operation Frequent Wind.

The visits by U.S. Navy warships are a sign of the strong and growing defense ties between the United States and Vietnam, signaling a strategic realignment in the Indo-Pacific region.