After spending Independence Day in Sasebo, Japan, she put to sea with the "Ticonderoga" task group on 5 July for routine operations. This quickly changed, however, when the warships received orders diverting them to the South China Sea where they joined other Navy units off the South Vietnamese coast and in the Gulf of Tonkin. As part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's effort to limit North Vietnamese attacks on Laos and South Vietnam, the carrier launched Vought F-8 Crusader aircraft to reconnoiter suspected communist infiltration routes in eastern and southern Laos.