Bennington (CVA 20) - Naval Cruise Book

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OPERATION MARINER NATO OPERATION The U.S.S. Bennington departed from Quonset Point, Rhode Island, September 16, 1953 to participate in the largest peace time maneuver in Naval history, 'cOperation Mariner. The following day we rendezvoused with the other U. S. Naval vessels off the coast of Virginia and formed the nucleus of the 'fblue forcesf' Northward bound we picked up other NATO units from Britain, Canada, and six other participating countries. Our objective as a member of ablue forcesn was to defend the western Euro- pean flank and protect the NATO fleet from enemy or uorange forcesf' To per- form this goal, we headed into the freezing swells of the North Atlantic near Iceland. Daily operations included all phases of simulated battle conditions. Nature was our worst enemy and num- ber one battle problem, Waves breaking over the flight deck prevented flight opera- tions on a few occasions, and forced the crew into eating meals sitting on the deck. On October 4th, Operation Mariner was concluded off the northern coast of Eng- land, In I6 days of NATO operations, we had learned many methods of improving our combined Atlantic forces. We had suc- cessfully proved that the free nations of the world could co-operate in repelling any Atlantic aggressor.

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