ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Marine Corps has activated a second fleet replacement squadron to train aviators to fly its F-35B Lightning II strike fighters. 

Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 502 (VMFAT-502) was activated on June 26 at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, and eventually will help carry the load of F-35B training as the Marines increase the number of F-35Bs in the Corps. 

Beaufort also is the location of the first F-35B replacement training squadron, VMFAT-501. Sometime in the future, the VMFAT-502 will move to MCAS Miramar, California. 

VMFAT-502 actually is a reactivation of Marine Attack Squadron 513 (VMA-513), an AV-8B Harrier II squadron that was deactivated in 2013. Upon reactivation, VMA-513 was redesignated VMFAT-502 the same day of the reactivation ceremony. 

VMFAT-502 will be known as the “Nightmares,” carrying on the traditions of VMA-513. The squadron originally was activated in 1944 and in its various iterations over the years has seen combat in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, and Operation Enduring Freedom. 

Lt. Col. Carlton A. Wilson is the first commanding officer of VMFAT-502.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Preble returned June 25 to its homeport of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam following the ship’s surge deployment to the U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations, the U.S. 3rd Fleet said in a release. 

Preble, along with a detachment from “Easyriders” from Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 37, deployed in March to conduct U.S. Southern Command and Joint Interagency Task Force South’s enhanced counter-narcotics operations missions in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. 

During their deployment, Preble, with their embarked U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement detachment, recovered 100 bales of suspected cocaine totaling an estimated 2,000 kilograms, with an estimated wholesale value of $40 million. 

“The success of this deployment was due to our Sailors and embarked Coast Guardsmen working together daily for a common cause – enhanced counter-narcotics operations,” said Cmdr. Leonardo Giovannelli, Preble’s commanding officer. “We thank our Preble families and friends whose unwavering support made it possible for their loved ones, our Sailors, to succeed at sea and complete our mission.” 

With the deployment conducted in a COVID-19 environment, the primary focus of ship’s leadership was crew safety. 

“We took all available precautions before the start of the deployment,” said Cmdr. Peter Lesaca, Preble’s executive officer. “I credit our Sailors for understanding the gravity of the pandemic, keeping themselves in good health, and taking care of their shipmates to keep the ship safe.” 

Preble joined other Navy warships, numerous U.S. agencies from the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security cooperating in the effort to combat transnational organized crime. The Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Customs and Border Protection, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with allied and international partner agencies, are all playing a role in counter-drug operations.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Capt. Brett Crozier, the former skipper of the first U.S. Navy warship to suffer a novel coronavirus outbreak at sea, wasn’t restored to command last week as many had expected following a weeks-long investigation, but the detailed report on the affair spreads fault to other officers as well in the response to the outbreak that infected hundreds, hospitalized several and killed one Sailor.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday and new Navy Secretary Kenneth J. Braithwaite announced the decision on June 19 at a Pentagon press briefing on the results of the USS Theodore Roosevelt Command Investigation, which was begun April 2, the day Crozier was fired. The probe was conducted by Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Robert Burke.

That day, Gilday said he would not reassign Crozier as the commanding officer of the nuclear aircraft carrier, “nor will he be eligible for future command. Capt. Crozier will be reassigned.”

Gilday also said the promotion of Crozier’s immediate superior, Rear Adm. Stuart Baker, commander of the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, to a second star was being put on hold “pending further review.”

The investigation’s 81-page report also faults the actions of the carrier’s air wing commander and the TR’s medical officer during the outbreak. Gilday said those officers would be subject to administrative action by Adm. John Aquilino, the Pacific Fleet’s commander. Gilday also criticized a breakdown in communications with the U.S. 7th Fleet staff, leading to mistrust among the Theodore Roosevelt’s leadership.

The investigation also ruled out resupply flights to the carrier from the Philippines as the source of the COVID-19 outbreak aboard, leading officials to conclude the ship’s port visit to Da Nang, Vietnam, likely was the cause of infection among crew members.

However, both Gilday and the report took pains to explain why no one — including commanders of the Pacific Fleet and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command — was disciplined for ordering a port call to a country where dozens of COVID-19 cases had been reported.

The cases were all in the Hanoi area, 450 miles north of Da Nang, and both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization advised Navy planners that Vietnam was — and remains — transparent and reliable in its outbreak reporting.

Also, several precautionary measures were taken, including briefing the TR’s crew to the risks, checking their symptoms before they left the ship and upon their return, Gilday said. Only locations approved by the State Department could be visited and crew members were not allowed to buy food in port. “Based upon the pre-event risk analysis, the decision to execute the Da Nang port visit was appropriate,” the report concluded, adding: “The visit was executed with sensible precautions, based on the world’s understanding of COVID-19 at the time.”

Braithwaite, who took office just a month ago, said he fully supported the report’s findings and recommendations. He also said he had received “no communication whatsoever with anybody at the White House” and had discussed the controversial decision not to reinstate Crozier only up the chain of command to Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

The 81-page report may not be the end of the saga, however.

The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), said his committee will launch an investigation into the Theodore Roosevelt’s COVID-19 outbreak “in order to better understand the full range of mistakes that were made throughout the entire chain of command.”

Gilday’s Change of Heart on Crozier

Gilday conceded that he previously believed Crozier should be reinstated after conducting an initial investigation following the captain’s removal, but that a wider investigation had a much deeper scope.

“It is my belief that both Admiral Baker and Capt. Crozier fell well short of what we expect of those in command,” he said at the June 19 briefing.

“Had I known then what I know today, I would not have made that recommendation to reinstate Capt. Crozier. Moreover, if Capt. Crozier were still in command today, I would be relieving him,” Gilday added.

Gilday’s mind was changed, he said, by the investigation’s conclusion that the carrier’s captain and the strike force commander “did not do enough, soon enough” to prevent the spread of COVID-19 aboard the Theodore Roosevelt.

Missteps included not enforcing physical distancing in many public areas of the carrier once crew began testing positive and releasing quarantined crew from the carrier’s aft section to ease crowding conditions.

The 81-page report may not be the end of the story. The House Armed Services Committee will launch its own probe into the outbreak.

Once portside in Guam, Crozier did not “forcefully and expeditiously execute the best possible and available plan” for evacuating the ship’s crew.
Instead, Gilday maintained, Crozier focused on obtaining single-room occupancy hotel rooms with separate bathrooms, in compliance with CDC recommendations, rather than moving crew to hundreds of beds spaced 6 feet apart in Naval Base Guam facilities as well as unoccupied hotel rooms and barracks on base and ships in port with extra berth space.

Crozier was relieved of command April 2 by then acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly after a March 30 letter that Crozier wrote to top Navy officers and fellow naval aviators, pleading for faster intervention from his superiors to assist his crew, was leaked to a San Francisco newspaper.

In the letter, which was sent, unencrypted, via e-mail, Crozier expressed alarm over the slow pace of disembarking his crew at Naval Base Guam while the virus spread rapidly on the ship. Publication of the letter in the San Francisco Chronicle sparked an outcry and worldwide media attention over the captain’s actions and the fate of the carrier’s crew.

The decision not to reassign Crozier to command either afloat or ashore was not based on the letter nor its contents, Gilday said. Rather, the investigation found it was unnecessary because higher commands were already responding to Crozier’s requests to find sufficient places to lodge crew members on Guam.

A deal brokered by Guam’s Gov. Lou Guerrero to place thousands of Sailors in hotels there was closed six hours before Crozier sent his letter. Not only did the letter not speed up the crew disembarkation, the tone caused problems for Guerrero, whose constituents feared depositing thousands of Sailors and Marines, many of whom might have been infected, on Guam.

Gilday said Crozier did not have his facts straight when he sent his letter up the chain of command and confused the situation by skipping over the 7th Fleet.

Pressed by reporters asking if Crozier was being held to a higher standard than the commanders who authorized the TR’s stop in Vietnam, Gilday said he didn’t think so.

“If I take a look at what Crozier was dealing with and yes, we had a lot of questions at that time about the transmission of asymptomatic cases,” Gilday said, adding “[but] we surely knew that we were in a better place getting those people off the ship. So even given what we didn’t understand about COVID, we understood that.”

Eventually, 1,100 of the Theodore Roosevelt’s nearly 5,000 crew members — including Crozier himself — tested positive for COVID-19. Only a fraction required hospitalization, but one Sailor, Aviation Ordnanceman CPO Charles Thacker Jr., did succumb to the virus.

TR Affair Forces Examination of Pacific Fleet Chain of Command

Crozier was hailed as a hero by his crew — who were seen on video cheering for him as he departed the ship in Guam — while others criticized the captain for circumventing the chain of command.

Modly said at the time that Crozier was not fired in retaliation for his letter but because the secretary had lost confidence in the captain’s leadership. Crozier, Modly said, had allowed the complexity of the COVID-19 challenge “to overwhelm his ability to act professionally, when acting professionally was what was needed.”

However, Modly complicated matters by flying to Guam to defend his actions in an April 6 profanity-laced address to the TR’s crew. Modly called Crozier “too naive or too stupid to be the commanding officer of a ship like this,” according transcripts of the Navy secretary’s remarks made by several crew members. Less than 24 hours after the speech, Modly issued an apology to Crozier, the Theodore Roosevelt’s crew and the Navy, and offered his resignation to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, who accepted it.

Gilday directed Burke to investigate the circumstances and climate of the entire Pacific Fleet affecting the chain of command. Previously, Gilday spoke of “a potential comms breakdown, wherever it occurred,” adding: “We’re not looking to shoot the messenger here, we want to get this right.”

The completed initial report was delivered April 24 to Modly’s replacement, acting Navy Secretary James McPherson, who directed Gilday to conduct the second probe, saying he had “unanswered questions that the preliminary inquiry has identified and that can only be answered by a deeper review.”

COVID-19 was detected on board the aircraft carrier in late March, 15 days after the TR made the Da Nang port visit. Stopping at Guam for a scheduled visit on March 27, Crozier began disembarking crew as the number of Sailors testing positive for the virus continued to rise. Finding suitable accommodations for thousands of personnel on the island was a slow process.

In his letter, Crozier said the carrier had inadequate space to isolate or quarantine Sailors. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” he wrote. “If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

Testing the entire crew for COVID-19 was completed in mid-May. They began returning to the carrier in waves after 14 days of isolation and after twice testing negative for the virus. Despite those efforts, at least 14 returning Sailors tested positive again for COVID-19. Following a bow-to-stern deep-cleaning process by about 700 crew members and recertifying aviation activities for its Carrier Air Wing 11, the carrier left Guam and resumed it mission on June 4.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The admiral in command of U.S. Naval Force in Europe and Africa said the U.S. Navy and other NATO naval forces need to extend operations in the North Atlantic to ensure the security of Europe and North America. 

“We’ve entered what I call the Fourth Battle of the Atlantic,” said Adm. James Foggo III, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Africa, speaking June 25 in a webinar sponsored by the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a U.K.-based think tank. 

Foggo, soon to complete his assignment in Europe, pointed to the increased Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea and the increasing Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic regions as a rising threat in an era of Great Power Competition. 

He noted the deployment of 10 Russian submarines simultaneously in the North Atlantic in October 2019 — detected by Norwegian forces — and the Russian construction of an icebreaker armed with the Kalibr cruise missile.  

Foggo said that NATO still has a competitive advantage over Russia but that advantage is under increasing challenge. He noted Russia is fielding an array of new submarine classes. 

The admiral said that Russian forces have reopened some old Cold War Soviet bases in the Arctic and have deployed the S-400 surface-to-air missile system in the region. 

“NATO needs to be able to operate in the far north,” Foggo said, noting the recent NATO surface action group that operated in the Barents Sea and the October 2018 operation of the USS Harry S. Truman carrier strike group, the first carrier strike group to operate above the Arctic Circle in two decades. 

“As for the seas in the high north, you can expect to see us operating there and ensuring freedom of the seas and adherence to international norms and customs again and again,” he said. 

“We need to look at new and innovative approaches to the Arctic,” he said, noting that Russia is not a member of the Newport Arctic Scholars Initiative — representing seven of the eight Arctic nations — at the Naval War College but should be. “We all benefit when we engage in dialogue — deter, defend, and dialogue.” 

Foggo said the Newport group is trying to restart the Arctic Chiefs of Defense meetings, “establishing an Arctic maritime symposium to bring together key stakeholders in the region’s navies and coast guards to better understand the challenges of the regions.” 

He said a Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), similar to the Incidents at Sea agreement and the 2014 CUES in the Far East, should be implemented in the Arctic to reduce escalatory mistakes.  

“Russia has the right to defend itself and protect its interests, but it needs to exercise that right in accordance with international norms, customs and traditions,” Foggo said. “What I’ve seen from them so far give me pause. Russia already is attempting to use the rules of the Northern Sea Route to violate international maritime laws and protocols.” 

He also said that “lest we forget, China also is seeking to exploit the Arctic. They are eying investment opportunities that range from natural resource exploitation to future commercial maritime traffic potential of the ‘Polar Silk Road.’ With China having its own precedent for making bogus claims over international waterways in the South China Sea, it’s possible that China will also seek to bend the rules in their favor in the Arctic.”   

Russia also has increased naval activity in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in recent years, particularly in support of Syria in the latter case. Syrian-based Russian jet fighters have harassed U.S. Navy P-8A maritime patrol aircraft. The Kalibr cruise missiles that arm the Russian Kilo-class submarines are capable of striking any capital city in Europe. Russia also has deployed fighter aircraft in Libya, which is in the throes of civil war.

NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — The CH-53K King Stallion completed a two-week period of sea trials in the Atlantic earlier this month, the Naval Air Systems Command said in a June 24 release. This was the first opportunity to see the aircraft working in a modern naval environment. 

Testing took place on the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp.  

“I’m very pleased with how the ship tests went,” said Col. Jack Perrin, H-53 helicopters program manager. “We were able to assess the K taking off and landing day, night and with night-vision goggles, and it performed extremely well.” 

According to the CH-53K integrated test team, the sea trials are a series of tests to evaluate the performance of the aircraft at sea. Tests performed during the two weeks included: launch and recovery; rotor start and shutdown; blade fold; and shipboard compatibility testing — all in increasing wind speed and varying wind directions relative to the aircraft. 

“The bulk of the testing was in launch and recovery,” said Perrin, “and we nailed it every time, no matter what the wind/sea conditions were. The 53K is now a ‘feet-wet’ warrior from the sea.”  

Ship compatibility testing includes towing the aircraft around the deck and in the hangar, performing maintenance while aboard the ship, ensuring the aircraft fits in all the locations it needs to around the ship deck and hangar, and evaluating chain/tie-down procedures.  

The CH-53K King Stallion continues to execute within the reprogrammed CH-53K timeline, moving toward completion of developmental test, leading to initial operational test and evaluation in 2021 and first fleet deployment in 2023-2024. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy base in Diego Garcia, an outpost in the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean, would be welcome to remain if Mauritius succeeds in its sovereignty claim over the archipelago, currently known as the British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT), a Mauritian official said. 

Diego Garcia, located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, hosts an air and naval base that have been strategically important to U.S. military operations in the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia since the mid-1970s. 

The Chagos archipelago in which Diego Garcia is located has been claimed by the United Kingdom, which in 1965 moved the Chagocian population from the islands to Mauritius and the Seychelles. Mauritius, an island group to the southwest between the Chagos and Madagascar, disputes the sovereignty over the Chagos by the U.K. The British have claimed the islands since 1814.    

Speaking in a June 24 online discussion sponsored by Arlington, Virginia-based think tank CNA, Ambassador Jagdish Koonjul, the permanent representative of Mauritius to the United Nations, said the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared in February 2019 that the Chagos Archipelago “is and always has been an integral part of Mauritius.”  

Last May, the UN General Assembly voted 116-6 in favor of the Chagos being returned to Mauritius. The ICJ gave the British until last November to withdraw, which did not occur.  

The British partitioned the Chagos from Mauritius in 1965 when the U.K. purchased the Chagos for 3 million pounds. Mauritius claimed the separation was forced in order for Mauritius to gain its independence from Britain, finalized in 1968. 

The U.S. has a lease on the facilities there until 2036. Koonjul said Mauritius would propose a 99-year lease for the U.S. to retain the facility and would even allow the British to maintain facilities there if such an agreement were reached. But he said the current impasse is unsustainable. 

As part of an agreement, Mauritius would insist that any Chagocians wishing to re-locate back to the Chagos be allowed to do so, excluding Diego Garcia, but that Mauritians and Chagocians be allowed to seek employment on Diego Garcia.  

Koonjul noted that Mauritius favors the stability that the U.S. base brings to the Indian Ocean and that, as a close partner of India, it favors the increasingly close defense relationship of the United States with India. 

“Mauritius stands ready to be a reliable partner to the United States,” Koonjul said. 

Also speaking in the discussion was Mark Rosen, senior vice president and general counsel for CNA, who said that Diego Garcia was “already developed” and “very precious from a logistics standpoint” and that its isolation from civilian populations gave it “more operational freedom.”   

Rosen said the United Kingdom’s position has substantially weakened” in light of the ICJ decision and UN resolution and that the “political optics” for Britain were “not good” in an era of anti-colonialism. 

He said that time is not on the side of the United States and the U.K. and that the U.S. needs to be proactive in seizing the opportunity to resolve the impasse. 

Koonjul said that Mauritius has “no objection whatsoever to the U.S. base in Diego Garcia. … The importance of the base cannot be underestimated.” 

He stressed the endurance of an agreement between the U.S. and Mauritius in that all Mauritian political parties support the base in Diego Garcia. 

By an earlier agreement, the United States is not allowed to base nuclear weapons in Diego Garcia, although nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered ships are allowed in and out of the port facilities.

WASHINGTON — The commandant of the Coast Guard saluted the cutter John Midgett as the ship heads for decommissioning after 48 years of service.  

In a June 23 message to the Coast Guard, Adm. Karl L. Schultz commended the John Midgett crew as having embodied the cutter’s motto — dedication, service, excellence.   

“The John Midgett was named in honor of Chief Warrant Officer John Allen Midgett Jr., who served for nearly 40 years with the U.S. Lifesaving Service and the Coast Guard,” the commandant said.

“He was one of five Midgett family members awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal for heroic action during the rescue of 36 crewmen from the torpedoed British tanker Mirlo in 1918.” 

The high-endurance cutter — the 12th and final of the Hamilton class — is in an “In-Commission Special” status as it is prepared for transfer to another nation. It was named simply “Midgett” until a new Legend-class national security cutter, the Midgett, was commissioned, upon which the older Midgett’s name was changed to John Midgett. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu5cP3E1EIE

The John Midgett was built by Avondale Shipyard in Louisiana and commissioned on March 17, 1972. The cutter was homeported in Alameda, California, until it was temporarily decommissioned in 1991 to undergo fleet renovation and modernization (FRAM). Upon completion of FRAM in 1992, the cutter changed its homeport to Seattle. 

“Throughout the cutter’s distinguished career, John Midgett served in domestic and international theaters, from the Bering Sea to the South China Sea, and from the eastern Pacific Ocean to the Arabian Gulf,” the commandant’s message said. 

Schultz said that the John Midgett’s “proud legacy of honorable service to the nation spanned nearly five decades.” He noted some highlights of that service: 

• On Christmas Day 1996, the cutter’s crew conducted a “power rudder” tandem tow of the disabled M/V Banasea to Adak, Alaska, with the tug Agnes Foss.  
• In 1999, John Midgett became the first Coast Guard cutter to deploy to the Arabian Gulf with a U.S. Navy battle group, helping to enforce U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iraq.  
• From September 2006 to March 2007, the cutter deployed as part of Expeditionary Strike Group 5 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, circumnavigating the globe and transiting the Suez and Panama canals.  
• While deployed to the eastern Pacific in support of Joint Interagency Task Force South from December 2016 to March 2017, John Midgett’s crew seized more than three tons of cocaine.  
• During the cutter’s last year of service, it patrolled the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska for more than 200 days, boarding 67 fishing vessels and prosecuting 16 search-and-rescue cases, ultimately assisting 20 mariners and four vessels in distress. 

NAVAL AIR STATION NORTH ISLAND, Calif. — Bell Textron Inc. and Boeing delivered the first CMV-22B Osprey for fleet operations to the U.S. Navy on June 22. The CMV-22B is assigned to Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Squadron (VRM) 30 at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego. 

“We are thrilled to bring the Osprey’s capabilities as a warfighting enabler and its ability to provide time-sensitive logistics to the men and women deployed around the world in support of U.S. Navy operations,” said Kurt Fuller, Bell V-22 vice president and Bell Boeing program director. 

This aircraft is the third overall delivery to the Navy. Bell Boeing delivered the first CMV-22B at Naval Air Station Patuxent River in February for developmental testing, followed by a second in May. The Navy-variant V-22 will take over the carrier onboard delivery mission, replacing the C-2A Greyhound. 

“This first fleet delivery marks a new chapter of the V-22 tilt-rotor program providing enhanced capabilities and increased flexibility to the U.S. Navy as they conduct important operational missions around the globe,” said Shane Openshaw, Boeing vice president of tilt-rotor programs and deputy director of the Bell Boeing team. 

The CMV-22B and C-2A Greyhound conducted a symbolic passing of the torch flight in April. 

“The CMV-22B will be a game-changing enabler to the high-end fight supporting the sustainment of combat lethality to the carrier strike group,” said Navy Capt. Dewon Chaney, commodore, Fleet Logistics Multi-Mission Wing. “The multi-mission capabilities of the CMV-22B, already recognized, will be realized in Naval aviation’s air wing of the future. The arrival of this aircraft is the first of many steps to that becoming reality.” 

The CMV-22B carries up to 6,000 pounds of cargo and combines the vertical takeoff, hover and landing (VTOL) qualities of a helicopter with the long-range, fuel efficiency and speed characteristics of a turboprop aircraft. 

Bell Boeing designed the Navy variant to have the expanded range needed for fleet operations. Two additional 60-gallon tanks and redesigned forward sponson tanks can cover more than 1,150 nautical miles. 

The CMV-22B also can provide roll-on/roll-off delivery of the F135 engine power module for the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter.

ARLINGTON, Va. — Top U.S. missile defense officials say they are not overly concerned about Japan’s decision to suspend the planned deployment of two Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense systems aimed at countering North Korean missiles.

Japan’s defense minister, Taro Kono, announced June 15 that he was halting the installations at Akita Prefecture in the north and Yamaguchi Prefecture in the south of Japan’s main island of Honshu, citing cost and technical issues.

Those issues included concerns that the interceptors’ rocket boosters might endanger civilian lives and infrastructure if they did not fall in designated safe areas after separating from the SM-3 Block IIA missile. Communities near both sites opposed the installations, concerned about radiation from the system’s Lockheed Martin Long Range Discrimination Radar.

“I’m not necessarily shocked” by the decision to suspend work in Japan, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s commander, Vice Adm. Jon Hill, said on June 23. “There are options out there, and we’ll work them,” he told a livestreamed roundtable on Global Missile Defense Responsibilities presented by the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

Hill noted the longstanding U.S.-Japanese partnership in the Pacific region, including cooperative technology development, like the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, co-developed by Raytheon Missile Systems and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

“Fundamentally, the issue is the siting,” Hill said. “We spent a lot of time going through the impacts of the sensing capability [and] what it means to have interceptors near a community area.”

Hill said he wanted to give the Japanese government time to work the issues out, pledging to Tokyo “we are going to lean in and give you whatever support and help you need to make the decision.”

Rear Adm. Stephen Koehler, director of operations for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, emphasized the strength of the U.S.-Japanese partnership on ballistic missile defense and pledged  to work for “the best solution in the theater for them, for us, and for the overarching threat that we face together.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Navy has awarded an $869 million contract modification for continued work on the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine (SSBN) design and support, but which also includes an option to build the first two Columbia SSBNs when funds are authorized and appropriated by Congress, the Navy announced on June 22. The work to ready the contract option will enable the Navy, if authorized, to begin construction of the first Columbia in October 2020. 

Naval Sea Systems Command awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat the $869 million contract modification to pursue “continued design completion, engineering work, affordability studies and design support efforts for the Columbia class,” the 22 June Defense Department contract announcement said. “This modification also includes submarine industrial base development and expansion efforts as part of the integrated enterprise plan and multi-program material procurement supporting Columbia SSBNs and the nuclear shipbuilding enterprise (Virginia-class [submarine] and Ford-class [aircraft carrier]). The contract modification also provides additional United Kingdom Strategic Weapon Support System kit manufacturing and effort to support expansion of the domestic missile tube industrial base.” 

The contract modification also features an option — that already has been fully priced by the Navy — that would start construction of the first Columbia, SSBN 826, in October 2020, and fund advance procurement, advance construction and 2024 construction start of the second Columbia, SSBN 827. If exercised, the option would increase the value of the contract to $9.5 billion. 

In a June 22 teleconference with reporters, James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, defense and acquisition, said the Navy is focused on its supplier industrial base and improving the capacity of its sub-tier vendors, which would reduce risk in its nuclear ship programs and thereby reduce risk and delay in the Columbia program. He expressed appreciation of Congress for its support of the Navy’s efforts to shore up the industrial base. 

Geurts said the work of the Navy to price out the two SSBN contract option will help the service keep on schedule and achieve economies on materials and advance procurement for the class.  

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., chairman of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, in whose district Electric Boat’s main facility is located, praised the Navy’s initiative in a June 22 statement.  

“Today’s announcement means ‘game on’ for this exciting and transformational project that will shape our region’s economy for the next two decades — and I know that our talented shipbuilders of Electric Boat are up to the challenge,” Courtney said. “This award is the culmination of nearly a decade’s worth of preparation for this milestone moment for our region and our nation,” Courtney said. “The replacement of our sea-based strategic deterrent comes only once every other generation, and this work is already fueling unprecedented growth in the workforce in Groton and transformation of the shipyard. This isn’t just good news for Groton — the work that will be done on this program will fuel activity at suppliers across our state and our nation for years to come. This exciting news is a testament to the hard work of countless designers, engineers and waterfront tradesmen and women who have worked so hard each and every day for more than a decade to see this day come.” 

Geurts said the strategic imperative of fielding the USS Columbia on its first deterrent patrol in 2031 requires a delivery of the submarine in 2028. 

The Navy plans to build 12 Columbia-class SSBNS to replace 14 Ohio-class SSBNs. The Trident D5LE nuclear-armed ballistic missile will arm both classes.