Free Republic

WASHINGTON - United States and Japanese officials have agreed to allow the Navy to station a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Japan for the first time, the Navy announced Thursday. Though American troops have been based in Japan since the end of World War II, the Japanese public has long been wary of a U.S. nuclear presence because of concerns about possible radiation leaks. The decision comes 60 years after the United States brought the war to an end by dropping atomic bombs on a pair of Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "The security environment in the Western Pacific region increasingly...

Note: Click on any of the pictures in this report for a larger image. Over the 2005 Labor Day weekend we drove from Idaho to Bremerton, WA to visit my daughter and son-in-law (active duty US Navy) and our two grandsons. A secondary reason was to take a look at the US Navy reserve fleet there in Bremerton and to see any current US Navy vessels in the yards. The trip over was very beautiful and pleasant. There is a lot of very beuatiful scenary between Idaho and Washington. Here are some pictures of some of that scenary. Once we...

Is China building a carrier? By Yihong Chang JDW Correspondent & Andrew Koch JDW Bureau Chief Hong Kong & Washington, DC Chinese shipyard workers have been repairing a badly damaged ex-Russian aircraft carrier and have repainted it with the country's military markings, raising the question once again of whether China is pursuing longer-term plans to field its first carrier. In the latest developments, images show that workers at the Chinese Dalian Shipyard have repainted the ex-Russian Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier Varyag with the markings and colour scheme of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy (PLAN). Additional new photographs show that other...

The PLAN is readying the former Russian carrier Varyag for something. These pictures show the exterior painting now being completed in the standard PLAN surface combatant colors, with the superstructure preparing to be painted. They have been working on the project in their naval shipyards for over two year now.

In the last months there has been a lot of interest expressed on FR about aircraft carriers. I have found that there is a lot of interest all over the net. So, I created a web site about all of the World's Aircraft Carriers. It will surprise you how many countries operate at least one...and also how many are building large-deck Amphibious Assault ships. Of course, no one holds a candle at this time to America's capabilities in this regard. Please enjoy, and let me know what you think. I hope it serves as a resource for naval enthusiasts everywhere....