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Sea Swap Initiative Sees Positive Results After First Year in Surface Force

Navy Newsstand

Story Number: NNS031017-26

Release Date: 10/17/2003 4:09:00 PM

By Journalist 2nd class (SW) Jason Heavner, Commander, Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet Public Affairs

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- The third crew exchange in the Navy's Sea Swap program took place recently in Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates, when USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) crew members donned USS Higgins (DDG 76) ballcaps and commenced their deployment after relieving USS Benfold (DDG 65) crew members aboard Higgins' hull. After the swap, team Benfold crew members flew back to San Diego to man the hull of John Paul Jones.

Team Benfold crew members experienced one of the major advantages of Sea Swap: reduced transit time to the area of responsibility, which has been a morale boost for crews involved. "We frequently hear from Sailors that one of the disadvantages to six-deployments are the long and tedious transits. With maximum on-station time, they are getting a quicker access to real-world missions," said Vice Adm. Timothy LaFleur, Commander, Naval Surface Forces.

One of the real-world missions that Higgins took part of was the coalition force that launched Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles onto military targets in Iraq during the opening stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Shortly after the Benfold crew swapped hulls with Higgins in April, they executed numerous queries and boardings of vessels suspected of having ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network. They also conducted maritime intercept operations in the north Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which successfully deterred senior Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives from choosing an avenue of escape.

"Sea Swap has been running more smoothly and efficiently than planned," said Cmdr. Thomas Deitz, Command, Naval Surface Force operations officer. "There were initial concerns when OIF began last spring as far as the responsibilities like battle groups, strike forces and maritime intercept operations. With the increased rate of forward presence that we've been getting out of the two platforms, it's been very effective."

According to Dietz, the program has been so effective that plans are being drawn up to include Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates but no dates have been set yet.

Despite the positive results of Sea Swap, it's still too early to say if the concept will be a mainstay in the surface force, but when it comes to experimenting with other classes of ships, LaFleur said, "Yes we are, which is why we tried this program out, to see what works and what doesn't. So if increased forward presence is needed in a certain part of the world, we'll know if swapping crews is a viable option. You can't know that unless you do it and find out."