USS Germantown Contributes to Coalition MIO Effort
Navy Newsstand
Story Number: NNS031209-07
Release Date: 12/9/2003 12:04:00 PM
By Journalist 2nd Class Andrea Leahy, USS Germantown Public Affairs
ABOARD USS GERMANTOWN (NNS) -- Historically, amphibious ships like USS Germantown (LSD 42) have been responsible for putting Marines on beaches around the world, demonstrating the capability of the Amphibious Ready Group and Marine Expeditionary Unit. Now, the San Diego-based ship is deployed with a first-of-its-kind Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG), and it has a new mission - to support Operation Iraqi Freedom by joining coalition vessels in their search for smugglers in the Commander, U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility.
Its new mission has allowed Germantown to work alongside the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as coalition ships from Australia, Great Britain and Italy, enforcing U.N. Security Council Resolution (USNCR) 1483, which prohibits smuggling oil and other restricted cargo into or out of Iraq.
Under the resolution, coalition forces provide law enforcement and security functions for the area until an Iraqi maritime security force can be established.
Coalition maritime forces are supporting UNSCR 1483 in order to help facilitate the normalization of commercial shipping for Iraq, which includes the prevention and prosecution of smugglers, and to help thwart other forms of illegal activity.
The ship's boarding team is made up of Sailors who hold a variety of jobs. There are engineers, gunner's mates, damage controlmen and other specialists. Lt.j.g. Christopher Garcia leads the 14-member team.
"Ninety-nine percent of all boardings we do as coalition forces are compliant, meaning the ship's master agrees to stop, slow down, allow us to board, and give us a full disclosure of who his crew is and what his cargo is," Garcia said.
Boarding team members are armed with shotguns and 9 mm pistols. Germantown stays within a few hundred yards of vessels the team goes aboard, to provide extra protection to the boarding team as backup.
"If it came to a point where our small boat is coming alongside to board a ship, and they start taking off or doing erratic maneuvers, our direction is to fall back," Garcia said. "We're not a combative force. Our weapons are basically for our own protection."
The team has come across merchant ships and sailors from all over the world, yet most of the documents they check are in English. When they find documents in other languages, the boarding team brings copies or digital photographs back to Germantown, where there are crewmembers that read Farsi and Arabic. The translators are not actually Navy linguists. The ship is fortunate enough to have bilingual Sailors aboard.
Whether they're in English or not, copies of all documents checked are forwarded to coalition authorities, along with photographs and written notes from the inspections.
The mission is crucial to the reconstruction process in Iraq. Coalition officials estimate that oil smuggling costs the Iraqi people approximately $200,000 per day, along with the loss of one of its most marketable resources. This is money that Navy officials believe could go to the benefit of the Iraqi people.
For Germantown and other coalition units involved in the enforcement, inspections of vessels transiting the territorial waters are only part of the job. Vessels detained for smuggling must remain in a holding area pending adjudication by the Iraqi judiciary and the Coalition Provisional Authority.
This means that crews must have food, water and access to basic medical care when required. The health and comfort inspection ensures that detained vessels have these necessities.
"A lot of stuff is non-traumatic injuries...rashes, colds, minor infections," said Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Rob Beedles. He has assisted the boarding team on half a dozen health and comfort inspections, and has also worked alongside coalition medics.
The crew's ability to provide emergency medical response in this dynamic environment was most recently tested when Germantown, alongside U.S. and coalition warships in the Northern Arabian Gulf, rescued eight Iraqi crewmembers from detained oil smuggler Motor Vessel Al Huda when the vessel sank Oct. 29. Germantown treated and housed the Iraqi men following a coordinated rescue by U.S. Coast Guard cutter Adak and Australian warship HMAS Newcastle; USS Jarrett (FFG 33) dispatched its SH-60B Seahawk helicopter, and Italian ship ITS San Giusto provided communications and first aid in the rescue effort.
"We continue to demonstrate, even to ourselves, that the Expeditionary Strike Group concept provides the potential for new missions, Rear Adm. Bob Conway Jr. commander, ESG-1, said.
"Germantown demonstrated that it could do more than operate as a delivery vehicle to Marines going ashore. The ship and its crew demonstrated that they could be mobile and agile enough to operate in a coalition environment, and support missions along the spectrum of conflict, from the more direct nature of Maritime Interception Operations to the more humanitarian mission of health and comfort inspections, to providing medical assistance to the crew of Al Huda," Conway said.
Germantown is currently deployed to the Commander, U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.
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