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USS Gettysburg Concludes Record-Setting CNT Deployment

Navy NewsStand

Story Number: NNS060406-06
4/6/2006

From USS Gettysburg Public Affairs

MAYPORT, Fla. (NNS) -- USS Gettysburg returned to Mayport April 4, completing a record-setting six-month deployment to the Western Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean that resulted in the seizure of approximately 28,000 kilos of cocaine and heroin.

Deployed for U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command as part of a Joint Inter-Agency Task Force to conduct counter narco-terrorism (CNT) operations, the ships crew and embarked helicopter and U.S. Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LEDET) together completed perhaps the most successful CNT deployment in the 20-year history of the war on drugs.

“The men and women in Gettysburg performed magnificently and put a significant dent in the drug trafficking economy while making our shores safer,” said Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command Rear Adm. James W. Stevenson Jr. “They represented the United States to our partner nations with impressive professionalism and tangibly enhanced U.S. Southern Command’s Theater Security Cooperation objectives.”

Gettysburg interdicted or seized seven narcotics-smuggling vessels and more than 28 metric tons of cocaine, records for a six-month deployment. Gettysburg also completed important theater security cooperation objectives for the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces, Southern Command, visiting the Netherlands Antilles island of Curacao for the tri-annual Caribbean Navy Days 2005 and continuing the important U.S.- Colombian navy dialogue on counter-narcotic operations and tactics during a port visit to Cartegena, Colombia.

Before Gettysburg seized its first bale of cocaine, it stopped in Willemstad, Curacao, Netherlands Antilles, where it participated in the 2005 Caribbean Navy Days. One of eight ships present from seven different nations, Gettysburg contributed to several events, helping demonstrate the counter narco-terrorism and multimission capabilities of those navies that patrol the Caribbean. Gettysburg also hosted important visitors, such as the Netherlands’ Minister of Defense and the Colombian navy’s Commander, Caribbean Naval Forces, and more than 1,200 visitors from the local population.

Gettysburg returned to its CNT mission, conducting several boardings and “Right of Approach” queries on vessels suspected of trafficking illegal narcotics in the Eastern Pacific. In December, Gettysburg, with its embarked U.S. Coast Guard LEDET 407 and its SH-60B Seahawk helicopter from the “Winged Freaks” of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light (HSL) 46 Detachment 5, made three narcotics interdictions, seizing nearly 14 metric tons of cocaine and detaining 13 narco-terrorists. Their interdiction of one fishing vessel was the single largest maritime narcotics seizure of 2005 and one of the top 10 seizures ever made at sea since CNT operations began during the 1980s. After nearly three successful months at sea, Gettysburg returned to Mayport at the end of December for two weeks of mid-deployment maintenance.

Gettysburg made its fourth major drug interdiction of deployment at the beginning of January. After identifying and boarding a suspect merchant vessel, Gettysburg and LEDET 409 discovered and seized 1.5 metric tons of narcotics and detained its eight crew members.

Gettysburg then arrived in Cartagena, Colombia, for important military to military engagements with the Colombian navy, the first U.S. Navy port visit to Cartagena since May 2004. While in port, Gettysburg visited Colombian navy headquarters and hosted a luncheon and meeting to discuss CNT tactics with Colombian commanders, commanding officers and headquarters elements.

After departing Cartagena, Gettysburg returned to the Eastern Pacific via the Panama Canal. Patrolling deep into the Pacific, Gettysburg and LEDETS 409 and 404 interdicted two narcotics-smuggling fishing vessels during two different patrols. Both suspect vessels’ crews attempted to evade capture and the gathering of evidence by scuttling their vessels by fire or flooding, then abandoning them. Gettysburg and its recovery and assistance (R&A) teams investigated both circumstances, and in concert with its LEDETs, detained the narco-terrorists and collected the contraband and evidence needed to indict both fishing vessel crews as their vessels sank.

Gettysburg’s seventh and final interdiction was extremely challenging. Working in concert with a U.S. Navy P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, Gettysburg approached a suspected smuggling vessel known as a “go fast” under the cover of darkness, launched the ship’s rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB), and boarded before the suspected narco-terrorists even knew Gettysburg was just yards away. This operation was one of the first nighttime boarding’s of a “go fast” and resulted in the seizure of nearly four metric tons of narcotics and the detention of five narco-terrorists.

In all, Gettysburg and its embarked U.S. Coast Guard LEDETs detained more than 40 narco-terrorists, and together seized or interdicted more than 750 bales containing some 28,000 kilos of cocaine and heroin. The U.S. Coast Guard estimates this amount of contraband to be worth nearly $1.95 billion to the world’s drug trafficking organizations.

“I cannot say enough about this wonderful crew,” said Gettysburg’s Commanding Officer, Capt. Phil Davidson. “They understood their mission, met its challenges, and delivered success time and time again. No one has ever done it better.”