The IKE Carrier Strike Group is participating in Lightning Handshake, a bi-lateral exercise between the U.S. and the Royal Moroccan Navy (RMN) and Royal Moroccan Air Force (RMAF). IKE is on a routine deployment in the U.S. Sixth Fleet area of operations in support of U.S. national interests and security in Europe and Africa. (U.S. Navy photo by Cmdr. Jared Strout/Released)
She is part of the 15-ship carrier strike group led by HMS Prince of Wales that is currently training off the coast of Norway – see what she did in the video above.
The ship remained in North American waters during World War I, conducting training exercises to work up the crew. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the ship served in the Pacific Fleet. In May 1941, with World War II and the Battle of the Atlantic raging, Mississippi and her two sister ships were transferred to the Atlantic Fleet to help protect American shipping through the Neutrality Patrols. Two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mississippi departed the Atlantic to return to the Pacific Fleet; throughout her participation in World War II, she supported amphibious operations in the Pacific. She shelled Japanese forces during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands and the Philippines campaigns and the invasions of Peleliu and Okinawa. The Japanese fleet attacked American forces during the Philippines campaign, and in the ensuing Battle of Leyte Gulf, Mississippi took part in the Battle of Surigao Strait, the last battleship engagement in history.
After the war, Mississippi was converted into a gunnery training ship, and was also used to test new weapons systems. These included the RIM-2 Terrier missile and the AUM-N-2 Petrel missile. She was eventually decommissioned in 1956 and sold to ship breakers in November that year.
Soldiers aboard the USAV SP4 James A. Loux (LSV-6) prepare to depart from Fort Eustis, Va., for a mission to build a pier off Gaza. March 12, 2024. USNI News Photo
Fort Eustis, Va. – More pieces of the extensive Pentagon effort to build a pier and establish a sea route for humanitarian aid to Gaza departed from the East Coast this week.
On Tuesday, four Army watercraft left the pier at Fort Eustis, Va., sailing down the James River, to the Chesapeake Bay and the open Atlantic. Over the next 30 days, USAV SP4 James A. Loux (LSV-6) will sail at the head of a column of three smaller landing craft – USAV Montorrey (LCU-2030), USAV Matamoros (LCU-2026) and USAV Wilson Wharf (LCU-2011) – in a southern route across the Atlantic and into the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Gaza. On Sunday, USAV General Frank S. Besson Jr. (LSV-1) left the pier at Fort Eustis and more Army vessels are set to join the five that departed this week, officials said.
The flat-bottomed cargo ships, assigned to the 7th Transportation Brigade of the 18th Airborne Corps, are part of the 500-soldier contribution to the Army-led mission to establish a pier on a beach in Gaza to provide humanitarian aid to Palestinians who are trapped in the region. The mission is part of an international effort to create a maritime corridor for aid in the Eastern Mediterranean that will flow through Cyprus, amid a backlog of aid shipments via land crossings.
Announced during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union last week, the Gaza pier will allow humanitarian aid to flow over the beach at a rate of about 2 million meals a day, Army Brig. Gen. Brad Hinson, the assistant commanding general for support of the 18th Airborne Corps, told reporters on Tuesday. The combined transit of the material and construction for the pier will take about 60 days, Hinson said.
USAV SP4 (LSV-6) underway on the James River on March 12, 2024. USNI News Photo
The Army will lead the joint logistics over-the-shore, known as JLOTS, operation using modular sections of floating causeway to create temporary piers to ferry goods ashore from deep-draft roll-on, roll-off vessels or container cargo ships.
Under the Gaza plan, Hinson said, the cargo ships will offload their cargo on floating platforms that are two to three miles off of the pier and the material will get ferried to the “trident” pier that will be anchored to the shore.
In his speech, Biden promised that the U.S. military would not set foot in Israel. At Fort Eustis, Hinson confirmed that the Pentagon and U.S. Central Command are looking for partners to help establish a beachhead and anchor the floating pier to the beach.
It’s unclear whether the U.S. has a partner on the ground to facilitate getting the aid ashore, nor is it clear when and where Israel will inspect the aid. The Israelis have historically controlled the waters off Gaza’s shore before the conflict began on Oct. 7.
“CENTCOM and DoD are working with partners over in the area. I’m not gonna go into the specifics of who we’re working with in order to anchor the pier, but we will have some assistance to be able to do that,” Hinson said.
“We will not be on the shore but we will be on the pier and that pier can extend anywhere out from shore from 800 feet up to 2000 feet.”
Sections of the Army mobile pier system at Fort Eustis, Va., on March 12, 2024. USNI News Photo
Additionally, it’s unclear where the cargo will be screened before entering Gaza, a condition Israel is putting on aid entering the region.
“We’re looking at different locations for [intermediate staging points] that are away from the area that would do the screening process for cargo before it gets on any U.S. vessel,” Hinson said. “But the screening process is something we’re working through right now.”
A joint statement from the U.S., European Commission and several other countries announcing the maritime corridor last week identified Cyprus as the lead for the Amalthea Initiative that would oversee “securely shipping aid” to Gaza. On Tuesday, an aid ship affiliated with a Spanish non-governmental organization left Cyprus to ferry food to Gaza, the Associated Press reported. Celebrity chef Jose Andres’s organization assembled the food package.
Pentagon Press Secretary Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters last week that the JLOTS operation would require more than 1,000 U.S. troops to assemble and crew the pier, but he has emphasized that no U.S. service members will step foot on the shore.
On Tuesday, Navy officials told USNI News the service is dispatching Naval Beach Group 1 from San Diego, Calif., to assist with the operation.
“Naval Beach Group 1 is the sole Navy unit to conduct Improved Navy Lighterage System (INLS) missions. The INLS is a causeway system that resembles a floating pier comprised of interchangeable modules and is used to transfer cargo from ships to shore areas where conventional port facilities are unavailable or inadequate,” reads a statement from the Navy.
A specialized Army tug designed to move pieces of the mobile underway on the James River on March 12, 2024. USNI News Photo
The service is also sending the logistics ship MV Roy P. Benavidez (T-AKR-306), a former military sealift ship that was transferred to the Maritime Administration’s Ready Reserve Force. Benavidez, a 35,000-ton Bob Hope-class roll-on, roll-off ship, is specifically designed to handle complex off-shore logistics missions, including carrying the modular pier components that make up the offshore platform. Given the ship’s reserve status it will take five days to get the ship ready and about two-weeks to transit the Atlantic, a Navy official told USNI News.
In addition to the Army vessels that departed on Tuesday, the modular pieces of the pier and the off-shore platforms – called the modular causeway system – are being assembled in the James River and will be carried separately by an unspecified strategic vessel, Hinson said.
The military practices JLOTS missions during joint exercises, including last year at Talisman Sabre 2023, which included the same Army unit performing the aid mission to Gaza.
“The capability provides a key logistic advantage for combat forces operating in areas lacking port infrastructure and can also be used to shuttle supplies to shore during humanitarian assistance operations,” the Defense Department said in a news release about the exercise last year.
NAVAIR issued a flight clearance for the V-22 Osprey thereby lifting the grounding. In response to the preliminary investigation indicating a materiel failure of a V-22 component, the V-22 grounding was initiated on December 6, 2023. The grounding provided time for a thorough review of the mishap and formulation of risk mitigation controls to assist with safely returning the V-22 to flight operations, according to the US Navy.
NAVAIR has worked with the USAF-led investigation to identify the materiel failure that led to the mishap together with the teams from the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Air Force
Now, the US Navy will perform a deliberate, multi-phased, conditions-based approach that will prioritize safety during the CMV-22 return to flight. Starting immediately, Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission (VRM) Wing will oversee a comprehensive plan that includes enhanced maintenance checks and tailored training to renew aircrew currency and unit readiness.
Maintenance and procedural changes have been implemented to address the materiel failure that allow for a safe return to flight. The U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Air Force will each execute their return to flight plans according to service specific guidelines.
“The Navy has confidence in the analysis by NAVAIR as the Airworthiness Certification Authority for the V-22 program, and the engineering analysis driving the return to flight decision. Commander, Naval Air Forces remains in close collaboration with key senior leaders across three services, and continue to work to ensure our pilots and aircrew can fly and operate safely,” the navy concluded.
“HMS Scott is an ocean survey vessel and is the third Royal Navy ship to carry the name. The only vessel of her class, she can remain at sea for up to 300 days a year, thanks to her novel crew rotation system.”
Undated photograph showing the Royal Danish Navy air defence frigate HDMS Iver Huitfeldt (Photo: Danish Ministry of Defence)
The Danish Ministry of Defence has confirmed that a Royal Danish Navy frigate successfully shot down four unmanned aerial vehicles launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebel group against commercial and coalition naval ships in the southern Red Sea on Saturday, March 9.
The air defence frigate HDMS Iver Huitfeldt had just resumed its patrol mission in the Red Sea following a brief port stay in Safaga in Egypt when it was tasked to intercept a drone that was launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen at around 04:00 local time on Saturday.
Commander Sune Lund, Iver Huitfeldt‘s captain, said the drone was confirmed as hostile and subsequently engaged and destroyed.
Another three drones launched from Houthi-controlled areas were identified and destroyed. The frigate shot down all four hostile drones within the span of one hour.
The defence ministry said this latest drone attack was part of a larger coordinated campaign against coalition ships and civilian vessels.
Iver Huitfeldthas since resumed its regular patrolling of its area of responsibility within the southern Red Sea as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian.
