By LCDR Andrew Stackpool

The boarding party rappelles from the Super Puma to board the Tokyo Summer.

Australia led a major maritime exercise involving personnel from around the world, off the coast of Queensland earlier this month.

Exercise Pacific Protector was a maritime interdiction training exercise in the Coral Sea off Queensland’s central coast over the weekend of September 12 to 14 involving about 800 military and law enforcement personnel from around the world.

Australian assets included HMA Ships Success and Melbourne, with embarked helicopters, the Customs Patrol vessel ACV Botany Bay and a Coastwatch DASH-8 reconnaissance aircraft.

From the US and Japan came the destroyer USS Curtis Wilbur and the Japanese Coast Guard ship Shikishima with two Super Puma helicopters, while France contributed a Navy Guardian Maritime Patrol Aircraft.

Shikishima embarked a specialist Japanese Coast Guard Special Boarding Team and Inspection Team, while Wilbur embarked the US Coast Guard’s Law Enforcement Detachment (LEDET) 11.

The US Military Sealift Command ship PVT Franklin J Phillips played the target vessel MV Tokyo Summer.

Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom sent observers.

Pacific Protector began on Friday with reports that a suspected carrier of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was en route through Australian waters.

Immediately, combined military and law enforcement assets from the four participating nations tracked the vessel, while a PSI Task Group, comprising Melbourne, Success, Curtis Wilbur and Shikishima sailed from Gladstone to intercept her and conduct a Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS).

At 7am on Saturday, the Guardian and DASH-8 aircraft were on task and soon spotted the suspect weapons carrier. The Task Group closed and was soon in visual contact. Because Tokyo Summer was Japanese-flagged the task of boarding the ship fell to Shikishima. The cutter repeatedly ordered the vessel to stop but it refused.

At 10am, while the ships formed a close quarters cordon around her and their helos circled overhead, the JCG Boarding team rappelled aboard from a Super Puma and quickly secured the ship. The Inspection Team, reinforced by LEDET 11, followed them in Shikishima’s machine-gun armed, high-speed sea boats.

After a two-hour search WMD were found and neutralised, after which Tokyo Summer and her escort got under way for Gladstone.

According to Defence Minister Robert Hill, the exercise is the first in a series of maritime, air and land interdiction training exercises agreed by members of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) meeting in Paris during the week of September 1.

The US launched the PSI last May and eleven countries have signed the agreement, allowing the interception of ships and aircraft suspected of carrying WMD.

“The aim of the exercise was to practice intercepting, boarding and searching vessels suspected of illegal trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems and related materials,” Senator Hill said.

“Australia is experienced in conducting successful joint interdiction operations, such as the apprehension of a suspected illegal fishing vessel five weeks ago after a long pursuit across the Southern Ocean and the South Atlantic Ocean.

“Exercise Pacific Protector further improved our capabilities to conduct actual maritime interdiction operations in partnership with other nations.”

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