ABOARD AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS HARRY S. TRUMAN IN THE IONIAN SEA – For the longest stretch in decades, the Mediterranean Sea has played host to the deafening roar of U.S. carrier aircraft launching into Europe.
Since December, the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, Carrier Air Wing 1 and its escorts have been operating in the Adriatic and Ionian seas launching 80 to 90 sorties a day as far north as Lithuania for a variety of missions with NATO-allied aircraft from Romania, France and Italy. Some fighters launched from Truman are training, while some are set to police NATO’s airspace and prevent Russian aircraft from violating those borders.
“And so we’re here to deter,” Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro told reporters aboard Truman. “We’re here to work together, as members of NATO together, to protect each other, and to care, to provide as much support to the Ukrainian people [and] to the Ukrainian government.”
On Thursday, USNI News spoke with the pilots flying the patrols on NATO’s eastern front about how Truman and its air wing fit in with the larger alliance mission as the war rages in Ukraine.
The enhanced air policing is one form of deterrence the United States is doing in hopes of dissuading Russian President Vladimir Putin from further aggression, Del Toro, who was embarked on the ship Thursday, said.
As part of the Ukrainian invasion, the Russian Navy has massed ships in the Eastern Mediterranean centered on its sole foreign naval base in Tartus, Syria. Those forces include two Slava-class guided-missile cruisers – RTS Marshal Ustinov (055) and RFS Varyag (011) – designed to take on U.S. and NATO aircraft carriers.
The Truman CSG is joined in the Mediterranean by other ships from NATO, including FS Charles De Gaulle (R 91) and the Italian aircraft carrier ITS Cavour (CVH 550). But Russian ships and submarines are also in the area, Del Toro said. Deterring those ships operating in the Eastern Mediterranean are a major part of the Truman CSG’s mission as well as the policing operation over NATO countries in Europe.
The result is the deafening, body-shaking vibrations that are a daily occurrence aboard the flight deck. The carrier’s catapults have been shooting aircraft up to 90 times a day since the strike group got to the Mediterranean.
While the aircraft might be part of NATO’s enhanced air policing or training with allies, the day-to-day on the carrier is not all that different, said Lt. Cmdr. John Pavalok, the assistant air ops on Truman.
“The aircraft are flying. They fly in-country, do the mission, and then they return,” Pavalok said. “So [from] our perspective, it’s all the same to us.”
While Truman is no longer under NATO command, when the aircraft join the policing mission, they are flying a NATO mission, said Capt. Patrick Hourigan, commander of Carrier Air Wing 1, told USNI News.
“It is minimally different,” Hourigan said. “There are very slight changes to the rules of engagement because we operate under NATO rules of engagement versus strictly U.S. rules of engagement. That’s about the only change.”
Hourigan would not say where the aircraft from Truman are operating, saying just that they were flying inside NATO airspace. Before the Russian invasion, aircraft from Truman flew from the Mediterranean as far north as the Baltics.
Alliance leaders have been clear about protecting NATO airspace from Russian incursion as the war continues.
“We are…
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