Whidbey Island welcomed home Electronic Attack Squadron VAQ-130, dubbed “Zappers,” last month, following a combat deployment as the only EA-18G Growler squadron with Carrier Air Wing 3.
During the deployment, a Growler scored its first-ever air-to-air kill battling the Houthi militants in Yemen.
The deployment was historic as it was challenging, said Cmdr. Carl Ellsworth. It started as a seven-month mission to the Mediterranean Sea with an additional two months in the Middle East. Then, on Oct. 7, Hamas attacked Israel, and the squadron switched course in where it would spend the following eight months.
The Zappers were aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, working with other elements of the carrier air wing, and supported Operation Prosperity Guardian through the Southern Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb Stait and Gulf of Aden. In Operation Yukon Lightning, the Zappers executed nearly 700 combat missions to hinder Houthis, who control territory in Yemen and are backed by Iran, from attacking cargo ships, according to information from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
Typically, deployment is broken up with monthly port calls to give sailors an opportunity for rest. With how volatile that region has been, Ellsworth said, there were no breaks.
“We got extended twice,” Ellsworth said, “and when it was all said and done, it was nine months, and we actually didn’t know when we were going to get to come home.”
For the first time since World War II, an aircraft carrier came under attack, and the whole strike group had to defend against ballistic and cruise missiles, Ellsworth said. As a drone prepared to shoot a merchant vessel, a Growler struck it down for the first time in history.
The strike validates the weaponry and tactics that the Navy has been training for several decades, Ellsworth said.
“It was kind of a mix of old and new,” he said. “We’ve heard about and read so much about drone warfare, and this was literally having to fight drones. In some cases, it was humans fighting drones, and in other cases it was drones fighting drones, but plenty of things that had never been done or seen before occurred on this deployment.”
Growlers, unlike the EA-6B Prowler predecessor, hold air-to-air offensive weapons in addition to electronic jamming capabilities.
“In the context of modern warfare, it is still incredibly significant that a Growler was in the right place, right time and had the ability to prosecute that threat,” he said.
Ellsworth declined to provide the name of the aviator who executed the shot, but it was a junior officer on their first deployment, he said.
The squadron continued to make history. Within a week of this event, official clearance was given for Growlers to carry AIM-9X, an infrared weapon carried by F/A-18 Super Hornets, Ellsworth said, which he considers a huge win for the community.
The deployment was life-changing, Ellsworth said.
“For me personally, the words, ‘patience,’ ‘perseverance,’ ‘resilience,’ ‘faith’ and ‘gratitude’ have really taken on new meanings for me,” he said. “I really thought before this deployment that I understood all that, but this was a challenge unlike any other, especially as a (commanding officer), but for anybody, whether doing their first deployment or their fifth, sixth, seventh.”
Many of the members of the strike group had just graduated high school, he said.
“It’s not just about executing the mission,” he said. “It’s doing it day in, day out. Doing a dangerous job, being away from friends and family.”
The homecoming provided some much-needed rest and relaxation.
“One of the things I said, and the captain of the carrier as well said, is that we are going to return with honor,” Elsworth said, “and I feel very strongly that we did so.”
U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class William Sykes Pilots, assigned to the “Zappers” of VAQ-130, are greeted by friends, family and service members upon their return to Naval Air Station Whidbey Island.
