An emergency alert blares from a loudspeaker, and Damon Dennard and other sailors on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington are scrambling.

Dennard, 23, is readying bombs for loading onto aircraft as his crewmates race to their positions. “It has been eventful,” says Dennard, an aviation ordnanceman airman apprentice.

Dennard was one of dozens of sailors Reuters spoke with in September on a rare visit to a US warship that is central to the Iran war. The visit began at a particularly tense moment, just three days after the US military blew up five Iranian oil tankers in retaliation for Iran targeting a US Navy warship.

The George Washington’s mission near the Strait of Hormuz which has no defined end-date came as a surprise to the crew, who were deployed from Japan at the end of August to relieve another carrier.

The aircraft carrier is effectively a floating city of around 5,000 personnel, each with their own mission, from Majesta Ochoa, who operates a cash register, to Lieutenant Commander Brody Samaha, a “shooter” who helps oversee the launch of aircraft from the carrier’s catapults.

But there is a sense of synchronisation as the sailors go about their jobs, crew say.

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