Carrier (2005) PBS

Carrier, Ep. 5: Show of Force

Episode 5: "Show of Force"

The mission really kicks off when the Nimitz arrives in the Gulf. The conditions are extreme: flight deck personnel endure temperatures hovering around 120 degrees, while the pilots undertake grueling six-hour missions over Iraq. The F-18s are mounted with infrared cameras, enabling them to serve as the “eyes in the sky” to support the troops on the ground. Some of the pilots are frustrated that they’re not dropping bombs because, as they describe it, that’s what they’ve been trained to do. The aircraft carrier’s role and effectiveness in this particular war are questioned. Meanwhile, the strike group searches for terrorists on small dhows and intercepts cargo ships to search for weapons and bomb-making materials.



Chapter 1: "The Mission" (9:36)

With the Nimitz headed once again for the Persian Gulf, sailors comprehend the power of their weapons.

Chapter 2: "Over Baghdad" (15:19)

The pilots take to the skies over Iraq to back up their fellow soldiers on the ground.

Chapter 3: "Asymmetric Warfare" (12:13)

The Navy has to learn how to fight in a new era of warfare, where not everything is black and white.

Chapter 4: "Maritime Security" (11:35)

The Nimitz is only one part of a fleet of US and coalition ships sailing in the Persian Gulf.

Chapter 5: "Casualties of War" (8:08)

One sailor gets some bad news about family back home while the rest of the ship settles in to what is becoming largely a support mission.

CARRIER, a 10-part series filmed aboard the USS Nimitz, is a character-driven immersion in the high- stakes world of a nuclear aircraft carrier. The episodes follow a core group of characters as they navigate their jobs, families, faith, patriotism, love, the rites of passage and the war on terror. An Emmy Award-winning the television series is about a six-month deployment of a United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in 2005 from the United States to the Middle East and back.

Making the film CARRIER required 17 filmmakers to take a six-month journey aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz during its deployment to the Gulf in support of the Iraq War. They disembarked from Coronado, California on May 7, 2005 and returned there November 8, 2005 with stops at Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Guam, Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain and Perth, Australia.



The trip proved an evolution for the film crew who spent the early weeks trying to find their place while the 5,000 sailors and Marines around them were too busy to take notice. Eventually, the film crew discerned the ebb and flow of life on a carrier, and began to feel more at home on board. The ship’s crew not only accepted them but also took a vested interest in the project, making suggestions on the best places to film and providing access to missions that helped capture the full experience of the deployment.



Jammed into their own staterooms, the crew that once felt apart now felt kinship as they shared both trepidation and jubliation awaiting the safe return of the carrier’s jet fighters. When the huge emotional surge of seeing home hit in November, the filmmakers knew how the Nimitz crew must feel. But back on land, their own mission of editing and production continued for nearly three more years before the film CARRIER docked at PBS on April 27, 2008.