By Graham Davis

Navy clearance divers, now members of TAG/East come ashore at Garden Island during anti-terrorist exercises.

Photo: LSPH Damian Pawlenko

Training for the war against terrorism came to Sydney’s front door last month with RAN specialists, the minesweeper Wallaroo and several naval bases being utilised to instruct the NSW police in the art of underway marine boardings.

A week later other Defence establishments were used to hone the anti terrorist and hostage rescue skills of Defence’s crack Tactical Assault Group (TAG) East in readiness for the Rugby World Cup.

TAG East is made up of Army and RAN personnel. Navy’s co-operation with the NSW Police and the Tactical Assault Group (TAG) East team began earlier this year when the CO HMAS Watson, CAPT Peter Murray authorised three members of the Small Arms Training Team from HMAS Cerberus to come to Sydney to train 20 members of the new NSW Water Police Marine Operational Support Team in ship boarding procedures.

Arriving in Sydney in September the trio was given a hectic schedule.

HMA Ships Kuttabul and Waterhen were to be used as training venues, while Wallaroo was designated a “vessel to be boarded.”

The bulk cement carrier MV Claudia, a vessel that regularly plies in and out of Sydney Harbour, also became a boarding target.

At the Water Police headquarters at Pyrmont the three RAN instructors helped the police into their boarding kits and ordered them into the Harbour to test their recovery skills.

At the Indoor Sports Centre on Garden Island and under the watchful eye of RAN physical training instructors the police literally “climbed the wall”.

Shipping containers stacked three high at Fleet Base East and used by RAN boarding parties before they depart for The Gulf became the ideal spot for abseil training.

Meanwhile other police honed their unarmed arrest skills, again under the watchful eye of RAN instructors.
Other drills were conducted at HMAS Waterhen, after which the police, again with their RAN instructors, took to the harbour.

Wallaroo got underway and the police boarded her four times, followed by two boardings of Claudia as she steamed outside The Heads.

All the while under the close scrutiny of their naval instructors.

A week after the Water Police went through their paces other elements from the NSW Police and TAG East were in action.

On Friday, September 26 Black Hawk helicopters rehearsed approaches to a building on Garden Island and the DSTO building at Pyrmont and then returned on Sunday to insert the TAG personnel onto the Garden Island building.

Other TAG/East members, the bulk of them RAN clearance divers, came ashore from a fast aluminium assault boat.
The exercise concluded late on Monday night when Black Hawks and the TAG trained to rescue hostages held in the DSTO Pyrmont building.

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