ARLINGTON, Va. — U.S. Marine Corps leaders on Okinawa have relaxed restrictions for some essential off-base activities as the spread of COVID-19 on the island has slowed and U.S. military headquarters in Japan ordered a more rigorous novel coronavirus testing policy for personnel arriving on the island.

On July 29, Okinawa-based Marine Corps Installations Pacific (MCIPAC) reported that no one affiliated with the Marines on the island — uniformed, family member, or civilian employee — had tested positive for COVID-19 in the previous 24 hours. “We are still testing some groups and will be testing close contacts before they can exit quarantine,” Maj. Kenneth Kunze, an MCIPAC spokesman, said in a July 29 statement e-mailed to Seapower.

“Leadership is confident that we have contained the outbreak and are working hard to continue to mitigate the spread as the number of cases within the civilian population continues to rise on Okinawa and service members and families continue to [permanent change of station] to the island.”

Also on July 29, U.S. Forces-Japan, a component of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command overseeing all U.S. defense issues in Japan, directed all Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) personnel to undergo COVID-19 exit tests prior to release from the 14-day restriction of movement (ROM) already required of all new arrivals, including military, civilians, families and contractors.

Exit testing will be done between day 10 and 14 of the ROM requirement, and individuals must complete their full 14 days of isolation, regardless of the test result. Individuals testing positive will move from ROM into isolation. Component commanders were directed to develop and implement safety procedures for the new testing. Japanese officials in Okinawa and Tokyo have complained that the U.S. military was not doing enough to ensure all their arrivals from overseas were being tested.

On July 28, the Marines loosened some restrictions on off-base activities on Okinawa, which has been under stricter health protection rules than bases in Japan since July 11. Restrictions were eased on outdoor physical fitness activities and visiting off-base essential services like doctors, veterinarians, banks, grocery stores and gas stations. While personnel and their families may opt to use off-base schools and child-care centers, off-base liberty and recreation still are prohibited.

Navy and Marine Corps medical personnel, after “vigorous contact tracing and conducting more than 4,500 COVID-19 tests in the past month,” have identified two clusters, III Marine Expeditionary Force said in a press release. Those clusters are at Camp Hansen and Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, both of which are on Okinawa. Most of these individuals have been in quarantine since July 18, some since July 12, III MEF said on a Facebook posting.

“The level of testing has decreased over the last few days as the large batch testing of entire groups and units on Camp Hansen and MCAS Futenma have [been] reduced,” Kunze said.

As of July 24, there were 189 cases of COVID-19 at U.S. military installations in Japan and outlying islands, according to U.S. Forces-Japan. They included 84 at Camp Hansen, the worst-hit, 78 at MCAS Futenma, and two at Kadena Air Base, a U.S. Air Force facility, all on Okinawa. Two other Marine Corps installations on Okinawa, Camps Courtney and Kinser, each reported one person testing positive.

MCAS Iwakuni and Naval Air Facility Atsugi in Japan both reported three cases each and Fleet Activities, Yokosuka, reported nine cases. The remaining cases were at Army and Air Force bases in Japan.

MONTEREY, Calif. — The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) has awarded a $42 million contract to Adams Communication and Engineering Technology (ACET) to support the Navy Postgraduate School (NPS) in its effort to expand partnerships in developing and fielding of autonomous systems and robotics, a July 28 NPS release said. 

ACET, with support from their exclusive subcontractor Arizona State University Research Enterprise (ASURE), will provide NPS coordination and management for the contract’s deliverables.  

Military students at the NPS have firsthand experience with complex challenges in the fleet and the field. They come to NPS to work alongside expert faculty researchers to develop solutions to key operational problems. 

Combining the art and science of their NPS education, students engage in solutions-focused experimentation, invention and innovation to realize the full potential of emerging technologies, many of which are in the growing arena of intelligent autonomous systems. 

NPS is already the largest single contributor to the DTIC library, which supports all the Defense Department, and this contract ensures that the knowledge generated by NPS and its partners will be rapidly incorporated and accessible. 

The new contract vehicle increases access to work with NPS alongside student-faculty teams and collaboratively reach optimal results faster leveraging the readily accessible test ranges, labs and facilities. Sponsoring activities send funded projects to NPS who will work with DTIC to place task orders on the contract. 

“NPS provides the interdisciplinary, defense-focused environment needed for the right mix of development and exploratory innovation,” said Ray Buettner, NPS associate professor of information sciences and director of the Sea Land Air Military Research initiative. “The Navy has many labs full of scientists and engineers, but the one thing they need, that NPS has, is the experience of our military student body to help guide development, and this new contract makes working with NPS very easy to do.”  

The new contract award is timely. Recognition of NPS’ ability to combine operational experience with research came in two recent developments: first, an update to the school’s mission directing it to be more outcome-focused on “technological leadership,” and second, the formal inclusion of NPS into the Naval Research and Development Establishment (NR&DE), which comprises all Naval Warfare Centers, the Naval Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research.  

A new memorandum of understanding between NPS and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) in Keyport, Washington, builds upon existing research relations in unmanned systems and will focus on expanding technical coordination with NR&DE labs. 

FAIRFAX, Va. — Logos Technologies recently received approval to disclose that it has been awarded a $6.7 million contract from the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command to develop, deliver, and perform proof-of-concept flight tests on a wide-area motion imagery (WAMI) sensor, the company said in a July 28 release. The sensor system will be called Cardcounter and is being developed to integrate onto the Navy and Marine Corps RQ-21A small tactical unmanned aircraft system (UAS).

Cardcounter will be a missionized capability derived from Logos Technologies’ BlackKite sensor. BlackKite is an ultra-lightweight WAMI prototype with infrared capability.

“We see this contract as a major step for us, the Navy/Marines, and the warfighter in general,” said Doug Rombough, vice prrsident for business development at Logos Technologies. “In embracing miniaturized wide-area motion imagery systems for tactical UAS, the Department of Defense is taking a technology that has already proven itself on the battlefield with aerostats and providing the tactical commander with guardian angel-like overwatch.”

BlackKite, upon which Cardcounter will be based, weighs fewer than 28 pounds, yet is powerful enough to image an area of more than 12 square kilometers (about 5 square miles) in coverage. Within that vast coverage area, sensor operators can detect and track all vehicles in real time.

“There’s nothing like BlackKite out there in the market today,” said Rombough. “It is a force multiplier in terms of enhanced situational awareness. The system catches and records the entire area in real time and streams multiple video ‘chip-outs’ down to handheld devices on the ground.”

Cardcounter will leverage BlackKite’s high-performance, multi-modal edge processor, which can store six or more hours of mission data. With this technology, users can forensically analyze the recorded imagery to better contextualize what is currently unfolding in the real-time imagery, drawing connections between people, places and events. The initial $6.7 million award from NAVAIR will cover the development of two Cardcounter prototypes, with a planned delivery by the end of September 2020 and ready to begin flight testing on the RQ-21A Blackjack.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s overseas expeditionary warfare capacity has expanded significantly with the deployment of the second expeditionary base ship USS Hershel “Woody” Williams.

The ship is forward-deploying to the U.S. Naval Forces Africa area of operations. The Williams likely will give the Navy a more enduring presence in waters off Africa.  

The Navy’s first ESB, USS Lewis B. Puller, is forward-deployed to the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command area of operations. Both ships operate with two crews, Blue and Gold, which rotate with each other in a manner like the Navy’s four Ohio-class guided-missile submarines. Both ESBs operate with a mixed crew of Sailors and civil mariners of the Military Sealift Command.

The Hershel “Woody” Williams, with its Blue Crew on board, departed Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia, on July 27, the U.S. 2nd Fleet public affairs said in a release.

In recent years, the Navy occasionally has deployed expeditionary fast transport ships, destroyers, and amphibious warfare ships to waters off West Africa for theater security cooperation missions.

“As the commanding officer of the “Woody” Williams’ Blue Crew, I can tell you that we are excited to embark on the ship’s first deployment,” Capt. David Gray, commanding officer of the Blue Crew, said in the release. “For the majority of our Sailors, this will be their first deployment, and I can’t think of a more exciting area to operate in. We look forward to our deployment in U.S. Naval Forces Africa.”

The 784-foot-long Hershel “Woody” Williams “features a 52,000 square-foot flight deck, fuel and equipment storage, magazines, repair and mission-planning spaces,” the release said. “Its features include a four-spot flight deck, a mission deck and hangar, work and living spaces for a couple hundred staff and embarked personnel.”

The ship can embark rotary-wing aircraft, mine-countermeasures unmanned surface vessels, unmanned underwater vehicles, patrol craft, SEAL teams and other special operations forces. It has command, control, and communications capabilities for its embarked forces. The ESB is named for Hershel “Woody” Williams, a Marine Corps veteran, awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

NEW ORLEANS — The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Diligence arrived at the cutter’s new homeport in Pensacola, Florida, at the end of a 64-day patrol in the Caribbean, July 27, the Coast Guard 8th District said in a release.

The Diligence crew performed counter-drug, search and rescue, and migrant interdiction operations in support of the Coast Guard’s 7th District.

This patrol began May 25 when the ship departed Wilmington, North Carolina, for the last time. The Diligence spent the prior 28 years homeported on Wilmington’s historic downtown Riverwalk, along the bank of the Cape Fear River. The cutter marked the completion of its third homeport shift throughout its service history after mooring on July 27 at Naval Air Station Pensacola.

The Diligence crew patrolled the Windward Pass between Cuba, the Bahamas, and Haiti alongside interagency and international partners to prevent and respond to dangerous illegal maritime migration and narcotics smuggling from Central and South America. The crew also completed necessary shipboard training to maintain qualifications and operational readiness during a summer period that featured an approximate one-third turnover of the ship’s crew.

“Diligence’s departure from Wilmington, North Carolina, was bittersweet, and we look forward to starting the next chapter of Diligence’s long and storied history in Pensacola,” said Cmdr. Luke Slivinski, Diligence’s commanding officer. “The crew’s commendable professionalism and proficiency enabled Diligence’s successful patrol execution amidst the challenges posed by the global COVID-19 pandemic.”

The Diligence is a 56-year-old, 210-foot medium-endurance cutter and has a crew of 70 personnel. The cutter’s primary missions are counter-drug operations, migrant interdiction, enforcing federal fishery laws, and search and rescue in support of Coast Guard operations throughout the Western Hemisphere.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Naval Flight Demonstration Squadron, the aeronautical team known as the Blue Angels, received its first F/A-18E Super Hornet strike fighter, marking the beginning of a new generation of aircraft for the world-renowned team.

The Super Hornet was delivered July 27 to the Blue Angels at their home base, Naval Air Station Pensacola, according to a spotter.

The Blues have flown the legacy Hornet since 1986, when it replaced the A-4F Skyhawk on the team. Single-seat F/A-18A and two-seat F/A-18B versions were used by the team and have been supplemented by single-seat F/A-18C and two-seat F/A-18D versions.

Boeing, the builder of the Super Hornet, was awarded a contract in August 2018 to convert nine single-seat F/A-18Es and two F/A-18F two-seater versions for the team.

The Super Hornets are receiving more than a new paint scheme. The internal M61 cannon is removed and replaced by a smoke generator is installed. An Artificial Feel Spring is installed on the flight controls to help the pilot in close formation flying. The modified flight software helps the pilot align the demonstration flight path to help give the watching airshow crowd the most advantageous view. The landing gear is modified to allow flight at higher speeds and increased Gs with the gear extended.

This year the Blue Angels also are receiving a new “Fat Albert,” a transport aircraft that flies the team support personnel and equipment to its airshow destinations and also performs at the show demonstrating a Rocket-Assisted Takeoff. The old C-130T was retired and is being replaced by an ex-Royal Air Force C-130J.

CARIBBEAN SEA — The Cyclone-class patrol ship USS Shamal with an embarked U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachment (LEDET) recovered more than 3,900 pounds of suspected marijuana on July 4, U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command/U.S. 4th Fleet public affairs said in a July 27 release.

While on routine patrol in the Caribbean Sea, Shamal spotted the go-fast vessel. Once detected, the crew observed suspected drug smugglers aboard jettisoning packages overboard.

In a coordinated effort, Shamal launched their small boat and the LEDET was deployed to the scene to further investigate.

Upon arriving on scene, the Shamal and the embarked LEDET recovered a total of 708 bales of suspected marijuana, totaling more than 3,940 pounds worth over an estimated wholesale value of $6.9 million.

“The Shamal team performed very well during the interdiction and safely boarded the vessel,” said Shamal’s commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Daniel O’Neill. “We received outstanding training in preparation for this patrol, and it really motivates the Shamal team when we’re able to demonstrate our abilities with a successful bust.”

USS Shamal is deployed to the U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations supporting U.S. Southern Command’s enhanced counter drug operations mission in the Caribbean.

PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The crew of the Coast Guard cutter Tampa returned to their homeport in Portsmouth, Virginia, after a 55-day counter-drug patrol in the eastern Pacific Ocean on July 26, the Coast Guard 5th District said in a release.

The crew of the Tampa interdicted more than 5,200 pounds of cocaine, of which 1,950 pounds was successfully recovered, and 3,600 pounds of marijuana worth a total of $96 million dollars. The crew also detained eight suspected drug smugglers who were transferred to the Department of Justice officials in Port Everglades, Florida, for prosecution.

The Tampa crew executed the counter-narcotics mission in the eastern Pacific, interdicting two low profile vessels as well as contraband jettisoned by a third vessel.

Prior to entering the primary patrol area, the crew conducted a joint operation with the Honduran navy as part of Operation Dominion. The operation involved exercising communications with the Honduras Joint Information Operations Center, operations with a Honduran patrol boat, and providing a law enforcement presence in Honduran territorial seas.

The crew conducted a training assessment with subject matter experts from Afloat Training Organization Norfolk, Virginia, and completed over 55 drills in less than a week to assess the crew’s mission readiness.

To protect the public and service members and preserve operational readiness during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Coast Guard has implemented strict safety measures. All service members are required to follow enhanced sanitation and spacing procedures and wear proper personal protective equipment. Prior to deployment in theater, all Coast Guard cutters conduct a 14-day at-sea quarantine, during which the crew is medically evaluated.

“I am exceptionally proud of what our crew was able to accomplish during this challenging patrol,” said Capt. Michael Cilenti, Tampa’s commanding officer. “Executing a counter-narcotics patrol in the eastern Pacific always comes with a set of unique challenges, and this patrol, in a COVID environment, was no exception. The men and women of the Tampa took these unique difficulties head-on, exceeding all expectations by keeping themselves and each other healthy while rigorously executing the assigned mission. Of course, the exceptional resilience our crew displayed would not be possible without the continued support of our loved ones back home. Their devotion and sacrifices form the foundation for our success, and we could not be more thankful.”

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — U.S. Coast Guard rescue crews ended a four-day search on July 25 night for survivors of a reported sunken migrant boat in the Mona Passage, the Coast Guard’s 7th District said in a July 26 release.

Twelve migrants reportedly remain missing after search efforts revealed no signs of persons in the water nor of a debris field indicative of capsized or sunken vessel.

One survivor, a Dominican man who was rescued by the Coast Guard in Mona Passage waters on July 23, claimed to be traveling with 12 others aboard a migrant boat that was transiting from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico when their vessel sank after becoming disabled and taking on water.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends and loved ones of those who may have been taking part in this reported migrant voyage,” said Cmdr. Beau Powers, Sector San Juan chief of response.

“To anyone in the Dominican Republic thinking about taking part or who may know of someone, do not take to the sea! The lives of the people who entrust ruthless smugglers, who are looking to only make profit, are in great danger. These voyages mostly take part in grossly overloaded and unseaworthy boats, that are constantly taking on water and have little or no lifesaving equipment aboard.”

Coast Guard watchstanders at Sector San Juan were contacted via a VHF Channel 16 radio transmission at about 7 p.m. on July 22 from the motor tanker Coral Energy, requesting search-and-rescue assistance in the area after the crew reported hearing voices coming from the water, while the tanker was transiting approximately 10 miles north of Mona Island, Puerto Rico.

A Coast Guard cutter, Joseph Doyle, diverted to the area and arrived on scene with the tanker, where the rescued man was located by the crew of the Coral Energy. The crew used a spotlight to vector-in the cutter Joseph Doyle to the survivor’s position. The Joseph Doyle came alongside and safely recovered the survivor.

The survivor stated he was able to stay afloat while holding on to two gasoline containers, which caused him to receive chemical burns on his body.

Since July 23, cutter rescue crews conducted 17 air and eight surface searches covering 7,117 square nautical miles within the search area, an area twice the size of Puerto Rico.

Rescue assets participating in the search were: cutter Winslow Griesser; cutter Joseph Doyle; MH-65 Dolphin helicopters from Air Station Borinquen; MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew from Air Station Clearwater, Florida; an HC-144 Ocean Sentry from Air Station Miami; an HH-C-130 Hercules from Air Station Clearwater, Florida; Customs and Border Protection maritime patrol aircraft.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) and its escorting ships arrived in the U.S. Central Command and U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility on July 24, where its strike group is relieving the USS Eisenhower carrier strike group (CSG). The Nimitz CSG, like the Eisenhower CSG before it, participated in a Competitive Unit Training Exercise (COMPTUEX) and departed coastal waters on deployment without the normal post-exercise return to port prior to deployment. 

The COMPTUEX is a final exam for a CSG prior to deployment. Traditionally, until recently, a CSG would get a homeport period of a month or so for crew leave and final deployment.  

By combining a COMPTUEX and a deployment on the same at-sea period, the Navy introduces more flexibility and less predictability in deployments, in the spirit of the Dynamic Force Employment concept. 

Another benefit is that the CSG reduces risk of infection by COVID-19 of its crew during the period between COMPTUEX and deployment. 

The Nimitz departed its West Coast homeport on April 27 but remained in the Eastern Pacific its COMPTUEX before turning west in June. The CSG participated in dual-CSG operations with the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Ronald Reagan CSGs and operated in the South China Sea. The Nimitz CSG also participated in exercises with the Indian Navy in the Indian Ocean while en route to the North Arabian Sea. 

According to a Navy release, the Nimitz CSG, commanded by Rear Adm. James A. Kirk, includes Nimitz and its embarked carrier air wing, CVW-17; Destroyer Squadron 9, the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59); and Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Sterett (DDG 104) and USS Ralph Johnson (DDG 114). 

The Eisenhower CSG has been deployed for more than six months, having departed the East Coast on Jan. 17. The CSG included the Dwight D. Eisenhower, with CVW-3 embarked; Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers USS San Jacinto (CG 56) and USS Vella Gulf (CG 72); and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers USS James E. Williams (DDG 95), USS Stout (DDG 55) and USS Truxtun (DDG 103).