On a flight deck usually packed with Prowlers, Super Hornets and other Navy jets, sailors gathered on the almost empty flat top of the USS Abraham Lincoln on Tuesday to welcome the new commander of the carrier’s strike group.
Navy Rear Adm. William Crowder assumed command of Cruiser Destroyer Group Three and the Lincoln’s strike group – the forces that are sent on deployment with the Lincoln – in an official pass-the-baton ceremony aboard the carrier at Naval Station Everett. The strike group includes the Everett-based Lincoln, the fast-attack submarine USS Louisville, the guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh, Destroyer Group Nine and Carrier Air Wing Two.
Crowder, a 1974 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, most recently served as director of the Navy Operations Group, a think tank for the chief of naval operations that’s nicknamed “Deep Blue.”
He has served in a number of posts at the Pentagon and was commander of the guided-missile destroyer USS Kidd and executive officer of the guided-missile cruiser USS Yorktown. Crowder has also served on the guided-missile frigate USS Ramsey, the carrier USS Kitty Hawk and the destroyer USS Stump. He is a native of San Diego, Calif.
Crowder replaces Rear Adm. Jacob Lawrence Shuford.
Shuford, who has been named president of the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., took command of the Lincoln strike group last year. He followed in the footsteps of Rear Adm. John Kelly, who was commander of the Lincoln strike group during the carrier’s 290-day deployment to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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