ARTICLE

October 2003

Just Back from Iraqi War, Amphib Still ‘Surge Ready’

by Harold Kennedy

Newly returned from the invasion of Iraq—the largest amphibious operation since the Korean War—the USS Kearsarge (LHD 3) rests at pier side at the Navy base in Norfolk, Va., awaiting routine maintenance.

But the Kearsarge, an amphibious assault ship, could deploy again very quickly, her commanding officer, Capt. Terrence E. Knight, told National Defense.

“We’re going into the yards in January, but if we had to, we could deploy tomorrow,” he said. “Nothing’s broke. There’s things that need to be fixed here and there, but we’re surge ready.”

Amphibious assault ships, nicknamed “amphibs,” are the primary vessels that put U.S. Marine forces ashore during combat operations. The Kearsarge, launched in 1992, is the third member of the Wasp class.

Amphibs are poorly understood by the public, McKnight said. “I just went to my 30th high school reunion,” he said. “People asked me what I’m doing these days. I said that I command an LHD, and they asked, ‘What’s that?’”

LHDs are the first amphibs designed specifically to accommodate air-cushioned landing craft (LCAC), which can move troops and heavy equipment quickly from the ship to the beach and beyond, and Harrier II AV-8B vertical and short take-off and landing jets, which can provide close-in air support for the assault force.

With a flight deck that stretches the ship’s full length of 844 feet, the Kearsarge resembles a small aircraft carrier. It can carry two dozen helicopters, including CH-46 Sea Knights, CH-53E Super Stallions, UH-1N, and AH-1W Super Cobras, plus a squadron of six Harriers.

Unlike a carrier, however, the Kearsarge also can embark, transport, deploy, command and support a Marine expeditionary unit of about 2,000 troops with all of their combat equipment, including armored vehicles. It is designed to support assault operations by U.S. seaborne forces against defended positions ashore, McKnight said.

“It’s a big ship, but it has a draft of only 28 feet,” he said. “That’s shallow for its size. It can go places where a carrier can’t go.”

Sometimes, the Kearsarge is called upon to deploy with little notice, said a ship spokesman, Senior Chief Petty Officer Gregg Snaza. In early January, the ship was ordered to the naval weapons station in Earle, N.J., to load up on heavy ordnance. Then, he said, “we received notice that we would deploy to ‘an undisclosed location’ within 72 hours” he said.

“During that time, we had to make arrangements for everything you can imagine—car storage, apartment leases, child care—you name it,” Snaza said.

In Norfolk and Camp Lejeune, N.C., the Kearsarge picked up more than 1,700 Marines from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade and set sail for the Persian Gulf. The destination came as no real surprise, McKnight said. “We follow the news,” he said. “This ship is wired for CNN.”

The Kearsarge served as the flagship for the 2nd MEB and Amphibious Task Force East, which included six other amphibious ships from the Atlantic Fleet. Nicknamed “the Magnificent Seven,” ATF-E crossed the Atlantic; passed through the Mediterranean, Suez Canal, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and arrived in the Persian Gulf in little more than a month.

On February 15, the Kearsarge began offloading its Marines and their equipment at Kuwait Naval Base. LCACs brought 45 loads from ship to shore, and helicopters made 92 lifts. All told, the ship delivered 550 pallets of ammunition and cargo and 107 vehicles to Kuwait. “It took us three or four days to offload, and we were done,” McKnight said.

After offloading, the ships remained in the Gulf to support the invasion. ATF-E joined Amphibious Task Force-West, a similar unit from the U.S. West Coast. Together, the two organizations formed Task Force 51, which eventually included approximately 32 U.S. and coalition ships, with 33,000 sailors, Marines and Coast Guardsmen.

It was, officials said, the largest amphibious force assembled since the Inchon landing during the Korean conflict. Each ship in the task force played a different role in the operation, McKnight explained.

The Kearsarge, for instance, concentrated on heavy lift, providing sea basing for 16 Super Stallions. The USS Bataan (LHD 5) and the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) carried Harriers. The USS Saipan (LHA 2) supported a mix of 42 helicopters—the largest number in the task force—including Cobras, Hueys and Sea Knights.

The USS Ponce (LPD 15) and USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44) served as key platforms in mine countermeasures operations. The Gunston Hall became the mother ship for marine mammals, trained to hunt naval mines.

The USS Ashland (LSD 48) carried the Marines’ M1A1 Abrams main battle tank, and the USS Portland (LSD 37) was a ready deck for helicopters and provided logistical support for the task force. The 32-year-old Portland completed her deliveries to Kuwait before being forced in April to return to her homeport, Virginia’s Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, because of engine trouble.

Helicopters from the Kearsarge conducted 2,123 flights during the daytime and 582 at night. Shortly after the start of the operation, Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 464, based on the Kearsarge, was assigned to deliver ammunition to elements of the 11th Marine Artillery Regiment, which provided cover for coalition forces as they advanced through Iraq.

Throughout the fighting, the Kearsarge’s crew of 1,200 sailors kept a sharp lookout for enemy aircraft and vessels. The ship has a formidable array of defensive armaments, including Rolling Airframe Missiles, NATO Sea Sparrows, 20 mm Phalanx Close-In Weapons Systems, and .50 cal. and 25 mm Mk 38 machine guns.

The Kearsarge was designated a primary casualty-receiving ship, because its large medical department can support up to 600 patients. Only the Navy’s two hospital ships can accommodate more casualties. Elevators bring them from collection points on the flight deck and hangar bay.

The Kearsarge’s medical facilities include five operating rooms, four dental operating clinics, laboratories, a pharmacy, an intensive-care ward and a blood bank.

“We have 600 units of frozen blood and 15 to 40 units of fresh blood,” said the ship’s senior medical officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerard Mahoney. The Kearsarge has a digital radiology suite that can transmit images to specialists at the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md. “We have gotten responses as fast as 12 hours,” he said.

“When there’s—no kidding—going to be a war, we get additional staff,” Mahoney said. A fleet surgical team was embarked to provide advanced medical, surgical and nursing care.

The 2nd MEB suffered 23 fatalities during the war. The Kearsarge’s medical teams performed 47 surgeries. They also provided the kinds of routine medical services required on a ship at sea for long periods of time, including 6,600 immunizations, 758 x-rays, 889 dental cleanings, 878 fillings and 122 extractions. The pharmacy filled 6,000 over-the-counter prescriptions.

After President Bush declared an end to major combat operations in May, the Kearsarge began reloading the 2nd MEB Marines and equipment in order to return home. It was a painstaking, 12-day process, involving an agricultural inspection of every vehicle and piece of equipment to make sure that they are not bringing pests or diseases inadvertently back to the United States.

The equipment also had to be cleaned before it was loaded, McKnight said. Sand, he said, was everywhere. “We had to take all of the aircraft apart—the electronics, the seats. I’d never seen it done that way before, but it was the only way to get at the sand.”

Sandstorms blew across the Gulf, so sand was a problem for the ship, too, McKnight said. “The ship looked like a sandbox,” he said. “It was finer than salt, but it was so heavy that you couldn’t sweep it away. You had to take a fire hose to it.”

In late May, the Kearsarge and the other ships of ATF-E departed the Gulf, on their long way home. As the task force neared the Suez Canal, the Kearsarge was diverted to provide support to Bush’s summits with Arab, Palestinian and Israeli leaders at Sharm el-Sheik, in Egypt, and Aqaba, in Jordan.

After completion of the summits, the Kearsarge resumed her homeward voyage, but her work was not finished. Just days later, while transiting the Mediterranean, the Kearsarge was diverted again, this time to the west coast of Africa.

The U.S. ambassador to the war-torn country of Liberia had requested military assistance, in case it became necessary to conduct a large-scale non-combatant evacuation operation. As it turned out, however, it wasn’t necessary at that time.

“Within 48 hours of our showing up, [the combatants] signed a cease fire,” McKnight said. After three or four days off the Liberian coast, the Kearsarge once again set out for home.

Since then, fighting in Liberia resumed, and, at press time, three more amphibs—the USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7), USS Carter Hall (LSD 50) and USS Nashville (LPD 13)—were set to move in, if ordered to do so.

The remainder of the Kearsarge’s deployment, however, was uneventful. Her crew and embarked Marines could relax, to some extent, and enjoy the ship’s amenities, which include heating and air conditioning, a library, fully equipped fitness center, lounges and closed-circuit television for movies, news and television programming.

Each sailor and Marine has his or her own e-mail address and access to the Internet, McKnight said. There are pay phones throughout the ship. “Anybody can pick up a phone and talk to his or her family back home,” he said.

With the increase in personal electronic communications, there has been a drop in old-fashioned letters at mail call in recent years, McKnight said. But packages—containing cookies and other personal gifts—continue to be popular. During the deployment, the crewmembers and embarked Marines received nearly 600,000 pounds of mail, mostly packages.

Special events—such as movie nights or pizza nights—are scheduled regularly. Occasionally, when flight schedules permit, cookouts are held on the flight deck. “We call it ‘the steel beach,’” said Snaza.

The Kearsarge has a ship’s store, eight snack machines and nine soda machines. The ship’s laundry processed more than 40,000 pounds of laundry, including some 6,000 officer and senior enlisted uniforms. Two barber shops gave more than 7,000 haircuts.

The USS San Antonio (LPD 17), just christened this summer in New Orleans, is the first of a new line of 12 ships that is intended to replace four classes of rapidly aging amphibs. (related story p.30) The 33-year-old USS Portland (LSD 37), which served with the Kearsarge during the operations against Iraq, was decommissioned in August. But the Kearsarge is not retiring anytime soon, McKnight said.

“This ship is only 10 years old,” he said. “It’s got all of the bells and whistles—all the dogs and cats.” The Kearsarge’s design permits it to undertake a wide range of missions, from small evacuations to participation in major wars, McKnight said. “We did it all on this deployment.”

The Kearsarge also can accommodate new equipment, such as the MV-22 Osprey, when it becomes available, he said.

As for the Kearsarge’s immediate future, when its maintenance work is completed, the ship will begin preparing for its next deployment, tentatively scheduled for January 2005. If history is any guide, that could change quickly, but whatever happens, McKnight predicted, the Kearsarge will be ready.

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