Tag: U.S. Navy

It appears that anyone can start tracking US Navy vessels online whenever they are traveling through congested waters:

Naval enthusiasts are tweeting what they believe are U.S. warship positions after commanders ordered the vessels to activate their beacons while in congested waters to avoid collisions.

The order to turn on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) locators, reported by National Public Radio on Sept. 29, follows a series of collisions that have killed 17 sailors in the Pacific in recent months.

However, it appears that the new procedure is also allowing people to track the warships online.

A tweet posted on Sunday that maps the location of a “US GOV VSL” approaching Hong Kong reads: “Reason to believe this is USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76).”

The aircraft carrier and the guided-missile destroyer USS Chafee anchored near Hong Kong on Monday, a Pacific Fleet statement said.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if the USS Ronald Reagan crosses the Northern Limit Line in the East Sea during this upcoming training mission:

The United States is expected to send the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), a forward-deployed aircraft carrier, to waters near the Korean Peninsula this month for a combined exercise with South Korea’s Navy, a defense official here said Sunday.

“We are in consultations (with the U.S.) on a plan for the aircraft strike group led by the nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan to operate in the East Sea around Oct. 15,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The Reagan will likely be accompanied by several other warships belonging to the strike group, such as an Aegis destroyer, a guided-missile cruiser and a nuclear-powered submarine.

The two sides plan to conduct joint drills to detect, track and intercept the North’s ballistic missiles in addition to anti-submarine warfare training, according to the official.

A U.S Forces Korea (USFK) official said no date of the Reagan’s arrival has been fixed yet.

“It’s likely to hold the combined training around Oct. 20. The exact schedule has not been set, depending on the conditions. And then it will likely make a port call in Busan,” he said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

North Korea has decided to pile on in regards to the US Navy’s recent high-profile collisions:

North Korea has used the recent fatal incidents involving two U.S. warships in its latest anti-American diatribe.

An article published in several state-controlled North Korean publications on Thursday derided the collisions involving the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald, which resulted in a combined death toll of 17 U.S. Navy sailors, and described them as a foreshadowing of America’s own destruction.

“When the American empire is sinking into the bottom of sea with the Aegis ship, strategic rockets soared into the space in the East, shaking the world with great thunder and spouting grenadine fire,” the article read, attempting to draw a link between Pyongyang’s missile tests and the accidents.  (………….)

The article goes on to lecture the U.S. on philosophy, quoting an Ancient Greek aphorism about wisdom being derived from the acknowledgment of one’s ignorance.

It seems like the odds of finding someone alive seem pretty remote, but lets all hope at least one of the missing is alive:

Ongoing search-and-rescue efforts for 10 missing USS John S. McCain sailors have turned up a number of bodies, Adm. Scott Swift, Pacific Fleet commander, told reporters Tuesday evening.

The Yokosuka-based guided-missile destroyer was traveling to Singapore for a routine port visit early Monday when it collided with the Liberian-flagged Alnic MC oil tanker east of the city-state, injuring five sailors and leaving 10 missing.

During a news conference at Singapore’s Changi Naval Base, Swift said that Navy and Marine Corps divers discovered remains while searching sealed compartments in damaged areas of the ship. The Malaysian navy also discovered remains that could be one of the missing sailors.

“We have a report from the Malaysians … that they have found a body,” Swift said. “We are in the process of effecting the transfer of that body so we can start the identification process and determine whether it’s one of the missing sailors or not. We have discovered other bodies during the diving on McCain today. The divers were able to locate some remains in those sealed compartments during their search.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but initially the damage to the ship at least visually doesn’t appear as bad as with the USS Fitzgerald.

It is pretty cool that this couple has been able to make this marriage work despite being in two different militaries:

While it’s not unusual to see American servicemembers with Japanese spouses in Japan, couples like Brandon and Yuriko Reed are a lot less common.

Brandon, a Navy petty officer first class and religious program specialist, is married to Yuriko, a petty officer third class and intelligence specialist serving in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

The Reeds, who wed in 2012 and have two children, met while both were stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni. It was Brandon’s first duty station and Yuriko’s second, after a stint as a trumpet player at a Japanese base near Hiroshima.

The couple met through mutual friends after Yuriko sought an American who could help her practice English.

“Everyone wants this crazy story,” Brandon said. “But that’s really all there is. Nothing spectacular.”

Through careful coordination with their respective services, the Reeds managed to secure orders for both to be stationed at Yokosuka. Brandon said he and Yuriko are lucky that his job allows him to be stationed at any major Navy or Marine Corps base. Because the JMSDF has no permanent installations outside of Japan, Yuriko is generally limited to just a handful of U.S. and Japanese bases in Japan.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I can’t ever recall meeting anyone in the US military married to someone in the South Korean military.  Has anyone else seen such a marriage?

A US admiral makes a point about the US military being under civilian control of the military and of course the media runs with sensational headlines such as “If Trump Asked, We’d Nuke China Next Week,’ Says U.S. Navy Fleet Commander”.  The Pacific Fleet Commander probably should have been more careful in his wording considering the pathetically poor state of journalism in the United States currently:

But the head of the largest fleet in the U.S. Navy, Admiral Scott Swift, was quick to swear his loyalty to the commander-in-chief Thursday, to the point that the admiral said he would hypothetically follow the president’s orders to launch a nuclear missile at China.

“The answer would be: yes,” said Swift, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, when asked a question during an Australian National University security conference in the Australian capital, Canberra, the AP reported.

Swift made no suggestion that any such order had been given, but seemed to make the remark in the context of underscoring the U.S. military’s oath of allegiance to whoever holds the office of the president of the United States.  [Newsweek]

Really Newsweek do you have to add the statement “Swift made no suggestion that any such order had been given…”  I would think we would be at a state of war with China before any order to nuke the country was given.  Reading the various media articles on this topic almost seems like the media wanted Admiral Swift to say he would not follow President Trump’s orders

Here's a fresher photo of the Fitzgerald ship damage, with flood control measures in place. Final investigation results will take time. pic.twitter.com/QMLLKHKmOq

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) June 18, 2017

Here is another example of strategic messaging against North Korea that the Canadians are ready to stand with the ROK if needed:

South Korea said Monday it will hold a combined live-fire naval exercise with the United States and Canada this week in its southern waters.

Hosted by South Korea’s Maritime Task Flotilla Seven (MTF7), the three-day training exercise will be staged in waters near Jeju Island from Friday, according to the Navy.

It will involve five South Korean warships, including the Aegis cruiser DDG-992 Yulgok Yii, P-3C Orion maritime surveillance aircraft and Lynx multi-role planes as well as the USS Dewey (DDG-105), an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer from the U.S. Navy, and MH-60R helicopters.

Two major Canadian frigates — Winnipeg and Ottawa — and SH-3 choppers will also take part in the practice.

The three sides plan to hold various drills on interdiction, air defense, anti-submarine operations and ballistic missile detection, along with live-fire training, said the Navy.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This is a horrible accident the USS Fitzgerald has been involved in that has caused 7 sailors to go missing and more injured:

The guided-missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald suffered damage to its starboard side above and below the waterline in the incident.

Cmdr. Bryce Benson, commander of the Fitzgerald, was one of three injured sailors who needed to be flown to a naval hospital in Yokosuka, Japan.

The two ships collided about 2:30 a.m. local time in the Pacific Ocean about 56 nautical miles from the port of Yokosuka and 12 miles off the Izu Peninsula, the Japanese coast guard said.

The Fitzgerald had left the US naval base in Yokosuka earlier Friday for routine operations in the area, a US Naval Forces Japan spokesman said. The damage to the Fitzgerald resulted in some flooding.  [CNN]

The Navy has a new hide and seek champion:

An American sailor whose disappearance at sea last week prompted a search by American and Japanese ships of thousands of square miles (square kilometers) of ocean was found alive onboard his ship on Thursday, the U.S. Navy said.

The U.S. 7th Fleet said the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Peter Mims of Interlachen, Florida, were being investigated. It said Mims would be transferred to another ship for a medical evaluation and recommendations for follow-on care.

In a statement, the Navy did not comment on Mims’ condition or say where he was found on his ship, the guided missile cruiser USS Shiloh.

Mims disappeared last Thursday when the ship was in Japan’s southern waters and was believed to have fallen into the sea. A search was suspended Sunday after more than 50 hours of effort by the U.S. and Japanese navies and Japan’s coast guard.

The Navy said a search onboard the Shiloh continued, and Mims was located on Thursday.  [Associated Press]

I wonder if anything like this has ever happened before in the Navy because this is the first I have heard of something like this happening?