The US aircraft carrier has integrated a complete French air group, pushing the interoperability of the two navies to an unprecedented level.

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"Do you know who George H. W. Bush is? Heavyweight and light-eyed, Chris Hill, the second-in-command of the USS Bush aircraft carrier, does not wait for the response from the aliens on board his ship to introduce the hero. For sailors, the former president of the United States is first the youngest naval pilot, qualified in 1942 to three days of his 19 years, whose aircraft, a Grumman TBF Avenger, will be shot down two years later by the Japanese enemy in the Pacific. Here, Mr. Bush is everywhere present, framed in the corridors, statufié in the hangar, venerated in the museum of the edge, present until in the room of the commander decorated with the portraits of the family entrusted by his heirs.

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The ship crosses her home port in Norfolk, the time is not for commemorations. Of the 4,000 sailors of the USS Bush, 301 are French, this May 11th. On the deck, they are only the roar of engines, kerosene clouds, races of men wearing helmets dressed in yellow, green and red according to their millimetric tasks, their heads sometimes passing twenty centimeters from the sheets, often too close to the hot nozzles. Decks, catapultings, "touch and go", refuelings like Formula 1 pit stops, screaming machines: ten planes at an infernal rhythm movements. It will last twelve hours, from noon to midnight.

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"Sweet symphony"

 

He is only the commander Winston Cotterel, from the flight deck checkpoint, to call it a "sweet symphony". "Yesterday was the rush, today we are a little faster because we got used to each other. A French Rafale has just hooked the stop cable and the technicians are running to clear the runway. An American F / A18 follows two minutes later, heavier, causing the ground to vibrate. While a Hawkeye rushes, the surveillance aircraft with its wide disk ...

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Source:lemonde.fr