Aircraft carrier that buried Osama bin Laden returns to San Diego

Reporting from San Diego -- To the tearful joy of military family members and the admiration of civilian onlookers, the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson returned to San Diego on Wednesday after a seven-month deployment that included the at-sea burial of Osama bin Laden.

“It’s like watching a piece of history float by,” said Nicole Palazzolo, 29, of Port Huron, Mich., as she watched from San Diego’s Harbor Island. “Those guys and girls, they’re the real deal. If you don’t believe me, ask Bin Laden.”

The ship’s 5,500 crew members had been ordered by Navy brass not to discuss the burial with reporters, lest details leak out that could further inflame tensions between the U.S. and the Muslim world.

But Rear Adm. Samuel Perez, the strike group commander, told reporters that the crew’s morale was sky high after the burial mission was completed. “I think everybody was pretty stoked,” he said.

The Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered carrier was in the north Arabian Sea last month when Navy SEALs confronted and killed the Al Qaeda leader in his Pakistan hideout. His body, after DNA testing, was airlifted to the Vinson and quickly buried at sea.

Family members and other well-wishers began to arrive at Coronado’s North Island Naval Air Station at 5 a.m., many carrying signs and small American flags. Some had traveled from across the country to see the ship’s homecoming; one family came from Maine, another from Alaska.

When the carrier entered the bay and emerged from the morning mist about 9 a.m., a cheer went up in the crowd, estimated at 1,500 people.

Sailors and Marines whose wives had given birth during the deployment were allowed to disembark first.

“I’ve seen pictures of him, but nothing compares to seeing him in person,” said Roy Dye, a seaman apprentice holding his son, Michael, born Feb. 14. “It’s an amazing feeling. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about my wife and my son.”

One baby, awaiting his father, wore a bib: “I’m Meeting My Hero for the First Time.”

Tourists lined San Diego’s Harbor Island and watched tugboats help the 1,100-foot-long ship maneuver into its berth across the bay. The Adventure Hornblower, a tour boat, glided along nearby.

Louis Dufor, 67, of New Orleans sat in a chair on Harbor Island, taking pictures of the ship’s arrival and the balletic maneuvers of the tugboats.

“Every time one of those ships comes back, it gives us a chance to thank all those guys who are out there protecting us,” he said. “That this was the ship that buried Bin Laden makes it even nicer.”

The Vinson’s deployment included successful assignments to disrupt piracy in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, training exercises with the forces of half a dozen allied nations, and 95 days of combat air missions to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Capt. Bruce Lindsey, the Vinson’s skipper, dismissed the plans of Fallbrook, Calif., diver Bill Warren, who has said he plans to lead an underwater expedition to find and photograph Bin Laden’s body.

“I’m sure he’ll need a heck of a lot of money,” Lindsey said. “And he’ll have to live a long time.”

tony.perry@latimes.com