Aquidneck Probes Iraqi Shipwrecks for Arms, Spies

Boarding Team Finds Materiel During CG's Largest Deployment Since Vietnam

By DAVID BROWN

The sailors of the U.S. Coast Guard are renowned for their achievements, from running down drug smugglers in the Caribbean to protecting America's ports to rescuing wayward vessels. Now add one more accomplishment to the list: helping the U.S.-led coalition topple Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Coast Guard officials sent 11 cutters and approximately 1,300 personnel to the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf to support Operation Iraqi Freedom, in the service's largest overseas deployment since the Vietnam war.

And their contribution counted. Vice Adm. James Hull, Atlantic area commander, pointed out that Coast Guard units were an integral part of the battle plan. "This wasn't the Coast Guard raising its hand saying 'Oh, take me to the battle,' " Hull said. "It was the combatant commanders looking at their war plans and deciding what they needed, and they told us what they wanted."

Describing the missions the Coast Guard supported, Hull said officials sent 650 Coast Guardsmen to the Mediterranean and another 650 to the Persian Gulf for the war.

Mediterranean Forces

The Coast Guard contingent that participated in the Sixth Fleet area of operations protected coalition ships as they moved through the area, from the Strait of Gilbraltar to the extreme eastern edge of the Mediterranean.

During the war, the Mediterranean was a busy place. Two Navy carrier strike groups, centered around the USS Harry S. Truman and the USS Theodore Roosevelt, launched strike aircraft and Tomahawk cruise missiles into Iraq, and several sealift ships carried supplies and equipment for the foothold the Army was to establish in Turkey. An invasion from the north was later scrubbed because of tensions with Turkey.

As ships passed through the Strait of Gilbraltar, they were protected by Coast Guardsmen from Port Security Unit 305 (PSU 305)--home-based at Fort Eustis, Va.--which was working out of Rota, Spain. In the eastern half of the sea, sailors from PSU 309 set up shop in Souda Bay, Crete, to protect shipping in the area. Those Coast Guardsmen weren't able to exercise their full muscle in the region, Hull said, because countries in the area began to step up their own security measures after they saw the Coast Guard presence.

"The result was, the host nations participated to a greater extent than anticipated," he said. "Although [the Coast Guard units] were frustrated a little bit, it forced the host nations to look at what they were doing to protect their facilities."

Also in the eastern Med were four 110-foot patrol boats: the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based USCGC Pea Island and USCGC Knight Island, the USCGC Bainbridge Island from Highlands, N.J., and the USCGC Grand Isle from Gloucester, Mass. The Hamilton-class 378-foot high-endurance cutter USCGC Dallas, homeported in Charleston, S.C., conducted operations at Gibraltar, performed boardings throughout the Mediterranean, then served as plane guard for the carriers Harry S. Truman and Theodore Roosevelt after ships from their strike groups moved to the Red Sea.

Hull said cutters have pulled plane guard duty before, but it was a rarity for a cutter to be the only surface ship protecting two carriers. The Dallas' contribution was vital one night after a sandstorm kicked up, making it nearly impossible for jets to land on the carriers. The Dallas' mast lights, Hull said, lit the way home for those jets. "They integrated well in naval operations and performed superbly in independent operations," he said.

Persian Gulf Forces

In the northern Persian Gulf, Coast Guard units saw more action. A mixture of patrol boats, law enforcement detachments, and port security units provided a layered defense stretching 40 miles from the mouth of the Khawr Abd Allah (KAA) waterway all the way up to the Iraqi port city of Umm Qasr.

In the south, law enforcement detachments embarked aboard two Navy 170-foot coastal patrol ships, USS Chinook and USS Firebolt. The Hamilton-class high-endurance cutter USCGC Boutwell, from Alameda, Calif., also was deployed in the area. In early April, Law Enforcement Detachment 205, embarked aboard the Chinook, discovered an Iraqi weapons cache in coastal caves in southern Iraq. The detachment found rocket launchers, grenades, missiles, explosive devices, gas masks, uniforms, and ammunition.

Four 110-foot cutters patrolled the waterway: the Highlands, N.J.-based USCGC Adak; Atlantic Beach, N.C.-based USCGC Aquidneck; Miami, Fla.-based USCGC Baranof; and Portland, Maine-based USCGC Wrangell. The crew of the cutter USCGC Sapelo, but not the boat itself, was in the area as well, spread out among the other cutters.

The Adak saw action early on 21 March, capturing three Iraqi sailors floating in the water after they abandoned their patrol boat before it was sunk by coalition forces. The sailors were among Operation Iraqi Freedom's first enemy prisoners of war.

The four 110-foot patrol boats spent the war and its aftermath monitoring the dozens of shipwrecks, left over from the Iran-Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm, and from Iraqi Freedom, that littered the KAA. The boarding teams were there to make sure Iraqis were not using the wrecks as hideouts to monitor coalition ship movements and perhaps as staging grounds for small-boat attacks. The waterway could have proven a hazardous chokepoint, considering it was the main route for humanitarian ships to get to Umm Qasr. While searching one of the southernmost shipwrecks, a boarding team from the Aquidneck discovered AK-47s, uniforms, and unspoiled food hidden inside.

After approximately three weeks of fighting, around the time Baghdad fell, the wooden fishing dhows that had stayed out of the river began to flood it again, creating more potential hazards. Coast Guardsmen from the patrol boats spent the rest of the war keeping a close eye on the fishermen, making sure they were using nets and were not engaged in suspicious activity.

The uniqueness of the mission was not lost on the Coast Guardsmen. "We're usually thought of as glorified lifeguards. Now we're out here," said Boatswain's Mate 3rd Class Mike Shabinaw, of the Aquidneck. "Now you could consider us more of an armed force. Coasties 30 years ago were doing the exact same thing we are now."

Lt. Holly Harrison, commanding officer of the Aquidneck, said the Coast Guardsmen are doing what they do back home, but in a tougher environment. "These guys will have some awesome skills that they can bring back and pass on," she said.

Living conditions in the Persian Gulf were a trial, however, especially as the crew sizes swelled and hot-racking became more common. Boats that were built to hold 18 personnel averaged crews in the mid-20s. "People are sharing racks, sharing lockers. There's nowhere to get away from everybody," Harrison said. "When you're staring at the same face for three weeks on end, it gets old."

At the port of Umm Qasr, four boats from PSU 311 patrolled the waterway about 2.5 miles north and south of the loading area. In the port's newer area, humanitarian-aid ships arrived with food and medical supplies after the river had been cleared of mines. The PSUs had provided security in Bahrain and Kuwait before deploying to Iraq.

Like the patrol boats, the PSU personnel kept an eye on the fisherman and anything that looked like it could be a floating explosive. "You just look for stuff floating in the water. Everything that floats down gets a look," said Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class Roger Wilson. "If it is suspicious, we get the EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] guys to look at it."

Coast Guardsmen assigned to the PSU reported that the Iraqi fishermen they encountered were friendly and responsive. Hand signals got the message across that they wanted to make sure the Iraqis were not planning any mischief.

Another unit, PSU 313, guarded oil platforms that had been seized by Navy SEALs.

Rounding out the Coast Guard force in the Persian Gulf was the Juniper-class 225-foot buoy tender USCGC Walnut. The Honolulu-based ship was originally sent to the region with the expectation that Iraqi forces would dump oil in the gulf, and the Walnut's environmental equipment would be used to contain the spill.

The spills never happened, but a new task arose. Coalition forces discovered that the buoys marking the channel along the KAA waterway had rusted and drifted, making navigation risky along the shipwreck-littered river.

The Walnut had no buoys of its own to lay, but redemption came from a warehouse in Umm Qasr. Inside, the Coast Guardsmen found 30 never-used buoys that the Iraqis had purchased but never set in the water. The crew of the Walnut, or Warnut as she came to be known, assembled the buoys and placed them along the channel where they were supposed to be. For the first time in a decade, the navigational charts of the KAA could be trusted.

The deployment provided an interesting twist for the buoy tender's sailors, said Lt. Rick Wester, the Walnut's executive officer. "Most people thought that when they came to this ship, they'd be tooling around the Hawaiian islands tending buoys," he said.

Coming Home

Now that the war has ended, most of the deployed Coast Guard units have returned home or are headed that way. The Boutwell and Walnut left the war zone on 14 May. The Dallas and the four Mediterranean-deployed 110-foot patrol boats returned home on 11 June, welcomed by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

PSU 311 also has returned home, and PSU 313 is on its way, relieved in Umm Qasr by PSU 309. Still undecided are the return dates of the four 110-foot patrol boats in the KAA. They may be relieved this summer, Hull said.

He said the Iraqi war experience was valuable for the Coast Guardsmen, proving what they can bring to the fight. "People aren't educated that we do this, but we're built into the combatant commander's requirements," he said. "They were a small part of a big effort." *

David Brown is a senior writer for Navy Times