The passage of the Suez Canal generally took one day. The canal had a speed limit of 8 knots, so that the wakes generated by the massive ships the canal was capable of accommodating wouldn't erode the walls.
For Captain Eddie Dixon, the Commanding Officer of the US Navy battleship USS Texas, that meant a long day for the crew to relax. No more drilling, no more constant lookout in the Persian Gulf. No, now they were heading for the Mediterranean Sea.
Again.
Scarcely six months had passed since Texas had last been deployed to help with the crisis in Italy. The ship had acted as little more than a show of American strength in the region, as there were some situations that a battleship was less than useless. Such as covert ops missions. A 75,000 ton battleship didn't exactly scream "subtle."
Still the Navy wanted her around. Something new was happening, though the vulpine captain didn't know what..
The Ticonderoga-class AEGIS cruiser USS San Jacinto was making the canal passage with the Texas, leading the battleship through the canal. Commanded by a friend of Dixon's, Captain Linda Hale, the cruiser was Texas's anti-aircraft escort. There once was a time, ironically, when the Texas provided her own AA protection, literally bristling with 20mm and 40mm AA weapons. But times had changed. Aircraft had gotten heavier and faster, and the guns had become obsolete and been removed.
But yet the old gray lady still proved useful to the Navy...and especially the Marine Corps. Acting as a giant armored artillery battery, she was the best friend of a Marine storming a beach, and a powerful deterrent to enemies of the United States who had any amount of coastline. While the aircraft carriers got all of the glory, the Texas was just as capable, if not more so, of projecting American power abroad.
So Eddie wondered why, yet again, his command was being sent to the Mediterranean Sea, especially after the last time they had been sent there. More than likely, it was another show of American presence in the region. Texas would be making port calls in several Italian cities, so it could be construed as a show of support for the "new" government, after the old, corrupt one had come toppling down.
Whatever the case, by the end of the day, the Texas and the San Jacinto would be out of the Suez Canal, and from there it was just about a day's steaming (at a comfortable pace) to their first stop: Rome.
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