US aircraft carrier counters false Houthi claims with ‘Taco Tuesdays’ as deployment stretches on

BY JON GAMBRELL
Updated 6:15 AM EDT, June 17, 2024

ABOARD THE USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER IN THE RED SEA (AP) — The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower may be one of the oldest aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy, but it’s still fighting — despite repeated false claims by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

The Houthis and online accounts supporting them repeatedly have alleged they hit or even sank the carrier in the Red Sea as it leads the U.S. response to the rebels’ ongoing attacks targeting both commercial vessels and warships in the crucial waterway.

That’s put its leader, Capt. Christopher “Chowdah” Hill, and his social media profile directly in what has become an increasingly bizarre internet front line as the campaign goes on. And while he shrugs off his posts, they represent the new level of information warfare the Navy is having to fight as it faces its most intense combat since World War II and tries to keep the morale of the nearly 5,000 personnel aboard the Eisenhower high and munitions ready as their deployment stretches on.

“I think it’s been about two or three times in the past six months we’ve allegedly been sunk, which we have not been,” Hill told The Associated Press during a recent visit to the carrier. “It is almost comical at this point. They’re attempting to maybe inspire themselves through misinformation, but it doesn’t work on us.”

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