Bataan Amphibious Ready Group MED 03 Deployment
Amphibious Task Force East
LHD-5 Bataan
"Big 5"
Crew members of USS Bataan (LHD 5) were enjoying the holidays when they got word they might deploy. Although the multipurpose amphibious assault ship had recently returned from Operation Enduring Freedom and had barely been out of the yards three months, plans to get underway kicked off immediately.
Once the supplies were loaded and the ship completed initial training and testing, Bataan was underway and headed to Naval Weapons Station in Earle, N.J., to take on 1,000 tons of ammunition for possible combat operations. The crew expeditiously completed an onload usually expected to take a minimum of five days.
Upon departing Earle, the ship received orders to deploy in support of the global war on terrorism. Before leaving, the ship made two last stops, one in Virginia and the other in North Carolina, to pick up troops and their equipment. Due to the superior performance of the crew, Bataan was able to rapidly deploy and answer the nation's call to duty.
While deployed to the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean Bataan participated in Operation Southern Watch, Operation Enduring Freedom (3 February-10 March), Operating Enduring Force (10-19 March) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (20 March-31 May). During Operation Iraqi Freedom the ship operated exclusively as an AV-8B Harrier II platform with 26 AV-8Bs aboard, dubbed the first "Harrier Carrier". The deployment included 797 combat sorties of more than 1,400 combat hours.
Four and-a-half months ago when the order came to deploy to the Arabian Gulf on short notice, USS Bataan (LHD 5) and the embarked Marines of Task Force Tarawa, headed east not knowing exactly what their mission was, nor when they would return. April 30 marked the beginning of the end when the combat cargo officers of Amphibious Task Force 51 held a meeting to discuss how to get the Marines and their equipment from their various positions in Iraq back south to Kuwait Naval Base for the backload
Before the Marines' equipment can come back to Bataan it must first be completely washed down and pass an agricultural inspection. This week is a busy one for Bataan with the majority of the backload taking place to get around 1,200 Marines and 153 vehicles back aboard. Some Marines are coming back by helicopter, but the majority are coming via LCAC. The ship and embarked Marines are components of Commander Task Force 51. The ship and crew left its homeport of Norfolk, Va., in January, for an unscheduled deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is the ship's third deployment since its commissioning in September 1997.
Chronology
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25 Jun 2003 - Return to Nofolk
22 Jun 2003 - Offload Marines at Morehead City
11 Jun 2003 - Depart Lisbon
07 Jun 2003 - Port Call @ Lisbon
06 Jun 2003 - Transit Strait of Gibralter
02 Jun 2003 - Mediterranean
end May 2003 - Red Sea
19 Mar 2003 - OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM
04 Feb 2003 - Transit Suez
14 Jan 2003 - deploys w/ ATF-E
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