FRIDAY FOTO (August 12, 2022)

SPLASHING ABOARD.

(U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sergeant Danny Gonzalez) Please click on photo to see larger image.

Marines with Battalion Landing Team 2/5, of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, throw and receive lines from sailors assigned to the amphibious warship USS New Orleans in the Philippine Sea, August 1, 2022.

These Marines, from Fox Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment were conducting welldeck operations training at night. The well deck is a hangar-like deck located at the waterline at the rear (stern) of some amphibious warfare ships. By taking on water the ship can lower its stern, flooding the well deck and allowing boats, amphibious vehicles and landing craft to dock within the ship

The 31st MEU is operating aboard ships of the USS Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group in the 7th Fleet area of operations — the Indo-Pacific region.

The USS New Orleans is an amphibious transport dock ship (LPD 18).  An Amphibious Ready Group consists of a Navy element and several other parts, like the 31st MEU,  to provide the Geographic Combatant Commanders with forward-deployed sea-based expeditionary forces that can work across a range of military operations.

FRIDAY FOTO (February 11, 2021)

Shooting Over the Waves.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Thomas Contant)

Sailors assigned to the amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6) participate in small arms qualification shooting on one of the ship’s aircraft elevators.

We’ve often seen photos of this kind of target shooting, usually taken from behind the shooters.

But this one really puts in perspective where such live-fire handgun testing occurs — high above the ocean. We wonder if that makes it harder to concentrate on the target, or eliminates distractions on a big, busy warship.

Click on the photo below of the USS America at sea to enlarge the image. You will see where this elevator is located, at the far end of the ship (upper right corner of photo), sticking out from the flight deck high above the sea. Granted, this week’s FRIFO appears to show the elevator is down on the hangar deck — not dizzyingly high in the air, but still over water.

 

(U.S. Navy photo via wikipedia)

America, lead ship of the America Amphibious Ready Group, is operating in the U.S. 7th Fleet’s area of responsibility, as part of a ready response force to defend peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

FRIDAY FOTO (February 14, 2020)

Iron Fist Irony.

(U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Natalie Byers)

U.S. sailors pull a combat rubber raiding craft carrying Japanese soldiers aboard the amphibious dock landing ship, USS Pearl Harbor, in the Pacific Ocean on February 6, 2020.

The photo was taken during Iron Fist, an exercise designed to enhance the ability of U.S. and Japanese forces to plan and conduct combined amphibious operations.

Several U.S. Navy amphibious ships, like the Pearl Harbor, are named for a famous Navy and Marine Corps battles — like  Tripoli or Fort McHenry — but there are others named for World War II engagements in the Pacific: Bataan, Iwo Jima and Bougainville. Your 4GWAR editor has often wondered if these reminders of bitter defeats and costly victories more than 70 years ago cause any uncomfortable moments of reflection when the forces of the United States and Japan — now close allies — engage in joint exercises and operations.

Do the soldiers and sailors in the photo above feel any sense of irony that they are all on board a ship, the Pearl Harbor, named for the 1941 Japanese air attack on the eponymous naval base that shattered the U.S. Pacific Fleet and eventually led to the destruction of the Imperial Japanese Navy?

Probably not. And maybe that’s a good thing.