Thirteen departments aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) earned departmental awards March 29 as part of the Commander, Naval Air Forces, Pacific Fleet Battle Effectiveness (Battle “E”) and Departmental Awards Competition despite spending nine months of 2016 in the shipyard.
The competition is held annually to recognize the best performing aircraft carriers on each perspective coast and recognize individual departments around the fleet for their performance and readiness.
Due to the Nimitz’ shipyard and maintenance period, nine of the ship’s departmental awards were retained from the previous year. Despite an almost two year Extended Planned Incremental Availability (EPIA) that was completed September 2016, Nimitz and her crew managed to show superior performance in 13 of 15 categories.
“The Battle “E” and departmental awards are a great recognition for entire departments and the ship as a whole,” said Nimitz’ Command Master Chief Jimmy Hailey . “It’s easy for a crew to go into the yards and use that as an excuse for not performing well, but this crew had a lot of pride in the work they put into the ship and it definitely shows.”
The departmental awards are judged on a point system and judge a department’s ability to complete wartime tasks and show a level of battle readiness.
The 13 departmental awards Nimitz won were: Air – (Yellow “E”) Aircraft Intermediate Maintenance Department (AIMD) – (Black “E”) Combat Systems – (Green “CS”) Damage Control – (Red “DC”) Deck – (white crossed anchors with Black “D”) Health Services – (Blue “M”) Navigation – (White Ship’s Wheel) Operations – (Green “E”) Safety – (Green “S”) Security – (Black “S”) Supply – (Blue “E”) Weapons – (Black “W”) Carrier Maintenance – (Purple “E)