Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Crew adjusts to unique duty: hijacker jail

Life aboard the Navy’s new — and only — pirate brig certainly isn’t normal, but it has fallen into a routine since sailors captured and brought aboard 16 suspected pirates in the Gulf of Aden in early February.

That’s probably because when the suspected pirates arrive at the makeshift jail aboard the Military Sealift Command supply ship Lewis and Clark, all they want to do is sleep. And when they’re awake, they mind their manners — at least, they have so far.

“Their behavior has been very good,” said the Marine officer in charge of the ship’s 20-guard detachment from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

“We provide them food; showers; good hygiene; we give them a climate-controlled environment; a very spacious area to live in — they’re probably living better here than they were on their ships.”

The commander, who asked that his name not be published because of concerns about retribution from pirates, said during a telephone interview from the ship that many of the pirate suspects understand basic instructions from their guards. A translator is available for more detailed instructions and a corpsman is always watching over the prisoners.

The pirates are supposed to stay aboard temporarily until the U.S. can arrange for them to go to a Kenya-based special pirate court. But as of Feb. 19, details for the transfer hadn’t been worked out.

Having a pirate brig on board doesn’t affect the sailors and crew members on the ship, said Cmdr. William Cox, the officer in charge of the 60 sailors and Marines. The ship’s civilian mariners still move cargo and fuel; the embarked helicopter detachment, from Helicopter Anti-submarine Squadron 3, flies its surveillance and logistics missions; the ship continues its underway replenishments.

The only difference is that the ship’s main deck has been divided for the new mission. Lewis and Clark-class ships feature an open space above the waterline running almost the entire length of the ship, where crew members stage cargo to zip across the high-lines during an unrep. The starboard half of Lewis and Clark’s clearway is dedicated to pirate detention, and its port half has remained an unrep staging area, Combined Task Force 151 spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, said. The task force was created Jan. 8 specifically for the anti-piracy mission.

When one of Cox’s HH-60H Seahawk helicopters lands with pirate prisoners, Marine guards take them through the starboard clearway, where they’re checked in and given a medical examination, a shower and new clothes. The guards then take them down one of Lewis and Clark’s cargo elevators to the ammunition hold with the temporary brig.

The pirates are held in an open area sectioned into an “L” shape with concertina wire. The Marine guards can oversee it from inside and from either end. Prisoners sit on foam mats and eat beans and rice prepared by the ship’s supply department, brought in by their guards.

Just another pirate patrol
Cox’s pilots have gotten into their own routine for flying their two helicopters as part of the counterpiracy task force. The day typically begins around 4 a.m., when commanders aboard the cruiser Vella Gulf, the destroyer Mahan and the other warships in CTF 151 meet to plan out the day. The helos usually are assigned patrol routes or logistics flights, and Cox said his pilots usually are in the air by 6 a.m.

The group’s Seahawks and ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicles do the bulk of the patrolling and surveillance, Cox said, investigating reports about boats that could be carrying hijackers. Although pirates and fishermen off Somalia use almost identical types of vessels, Cox said his pilots can make educated guesses about a boat based on its contents.

“Mostly it’s the weapons,” he said. “If you see certain types of weapons” — rocket-propelled grenades, for example — “that’s just not what your typical fisherman carries. If you see fishing gear, that’s not what your typical pirate carries. Also, ladders — there’re not too many pirates who use ladders for fishing.”

As merchant crews have become smarter about pulling up ladders they would normally let trail alongside, pirates have been taking their own to sea, Cox said.

Originally designed for combat-search-and-rescue missions, the squadron’s Seahawks are well-suited for counterpiracy tasks, Cox said, because they have room to carry four more passengers than the SH-60Bs, which also are part of the counterpiracy effort. Seahawks also have more firepower than other variants, including .50-caliber and M240 machine guns.

Cox said the helicopter squadron’s time aboard the Lewis and Clark will last until the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, from which the helicopters were detached, heads back to Norfolk, Va. That could be a tough adjustment, he acknowledged, after serving aboard an MSC ship where everyone gets his own stateroom.

“All my guys are spoiled,” Cox said. “They’re all ready to stay here and do the USNS life.”

Source: NavyTimes

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