Carrier Group 6

Carrier Strike Group 6 was a United States Navy carrier strike group. Its last homeport was Naval Station Mayport at the mouth of the St. Johns River near Jacksonville, Florida. Fifty-one Rear Admirals served as Commander, Carrier Division/Group/Strike Group 6 from August 1944 until the command was deactivated in April 2007.

Carrier Division 6 was formed as an aircraft-carrier-centered command in the Pacific theater during the Second World War. Arthur W. Radford commanded the division in 1944.

On 2 June 1952, USS Wasp (CV-18) relieved Tarawa at Gibraltar and joined Carrier Division 6 in the Mediterranean Sea. After conducting strenuous flight operations, between goodwill visits to many Mediterranean ports, Wasp was relieved at Gibraltar on 5 September by Leyte.

On 1 August 1955, the division consisted of USS Intrepid (CVA-11) and USS Coral Sea (CVA-43) (flagship), both homeported at Norfolk.

In June 1970, then Rear Admiral James L. Holloway III reported aboard Saratoga as Commander, Carrier Division 6.Saratoga was, at the time, in port in Naples, Italy. Holloway served as commander of Carrier Division 6 as well as of Task Force 60 from June 1970 and throughout the Black September crisis in Jordan. Carrier Division 4 relieved Carrier Division 6 on 22 November 1970, and Holloway and his staff returned to Mayport aboard Saratoga.

On 30 June 1973, Carrier Division 6 was redesignated a carrier group, along with all similar formations.

After a brief stop in Palma (24–28 August 1978), USS Forrestal (CV-59) left the Mediterranean en route to the Atlantic and the North and Norwegian Seas, to take part in the huge NATO exercise Northern Wedding (4–18 September). En route she put into Rota to allow RADM Norman K. Green, Commander, Carrier Group 6, to embark, and for RADM Smedberg to disembark and transfer his flag to the guided missile cruiser USS Harry E. Yarnell (CG-17). Northern Wedding involved over 40,000 men and women, 22 submarines, and 800 aircraft from nine NATO countries. Planners geared the exercise to simulate allied abilities to reinforce Western Europe in the event of an East Bloc attack. Forrestal and HMS Ark Royal (R09) led separate task groups that steamed in a two-carrier formation to gain sea control and deploy their aircraft to support amphibious landings in the Shetland Islands and the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. Heavy seas and high winds, however, curtailed flight operations during the first phase of the exercise, but conditions improved just barely enough in the harsh northern climes to permit the ship and her embarked air wing to support the planned objectives. The professionalism and dedication to completing their tasks which the British and Canadians displayed especially impressed crewmembers, who noted these specific allies' pride in more than one report. Vice Admiral Wesley L. McDonald—Commander, United States Second Fleet—gave a news conference to a group of U. S. and international journalists in the carrier’s "War Room" on the 9th, describing in some detail the significance of the exercise – normally held every four years – in preparing the allies to resist a Soviet-led attack against the West. After completing the exercise the ship returned to the Mediterranean, pausing in the Spanish port of Malaga (22–27 September).

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