Stalker And His Mom

Fifteen metres above the Gulf of Oman: cargo door open; all senses engaged. Surge of heavy air against arms and legs; vibrations moving from floor to feet to spine; muffled whine of the engine infiltrating your helmet, and best of all—out there—through that wide opening, the rapid rush of blue-silvery water, broken only by fleeting whitecaps and the vanishing trails of flying fish.

They call her Stalker—Stalker of the Seas; a Sea King helicopter flying her second mission of the day as the forward eyes of Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Fredericton, a 134-metre-long warship that is fast becoming a dot on the horizon to my right. Mom, as everybody likes to call her, is the only ship from Canada assigned at this time to counter-terrorism operations in the Gulf. Just a few weeks ago she was patrolling for pirates in the Gulf of Aden off Somalia—all part of a six-month maritime security deployment that began in October following months of intense workups.

In Canada, we generally only hear about the navy when its vessels, its crews and its embarked aircraft leave home or come back. We read stories and see photos of loved ones lining the jetty to wave and blow kisses, but seldom do we read about the in-betweens—when its people and assets are away, working on or under the sea.

Missing from the public picture is anything to do with the day-to-day grind—the drills, duties, evolutions, logistics and operations—that lead to success or failure, whether it is just off shore or thousands of kilometres from home. And it doesn’t matter whether you are tightening a greasy bolt in the stifling confines of the after-engine room, gathering and interpreting classified information in the highly secretive and dimly lit Operations Room, cooking breakfast for 250 people or using a rusty ladder to board a suspicious cargo vessel in rolling seas, it is the ship’s company—its officers, petty officers and crew—that determine the day at sea.

When Legion Magazine visited HMCS Fredericton last February and March, she was approaching the midway point in her deployment under Operation Saiph, switching from a counter-piracy role with Standing NATO Maritime Group 1, to a counter-terrorism mission under Combined Task Force 150, which was being led by an Australian commodore.

Over the next three issues of Legion Magazine, we will explore a variety of “in-between” moments experienced by Fredericton and her crew during and just prior to our visit. But before we set course, we should set the scene because the region’s geography really does explain why the ship’s captain, Commander Steven Waddell, insisted from the start that everyone remain vigilant and at the top of his or her game. “This is my fifth or sixth six-month deployment, and it is the same thing every time,” he told Legion Magazine. “Two-thirds to three-quarters of the way through folks are starting to think more about home, and yet they have to remain focused on the mission. I’m confident that it’s there, but I’m also a realist and recognize that what I’m seeing at this critical stage is the same thing I’ve seen on every other deployment.”

So, where exactly is the Gulf of Oman, and what is it about the region that triggers so much Canadian and international interest? The quickest way to get to know this part of the world is to go online or grab an atlas. Click or flip to South Western Asia. Locate the Arabian Sea, then head north above the Tropic of Cancer to where the Gulf embraces Iran and western Pakistan. Toggle north a little more and you’ll find Afghanistan. Look west and see how the Gulf hugs Oman and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) before doglegging into the busy Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf. Now zoom out and look south and you’ll spot the Gulf of Aden off the Horn of Africa, wedged between Somalia on the south and Yemen on the north. Further south, off the steep, sun-scorched eastern shores of Somalia and Kenya is the Somali Basin, a place Somali pirates and the people fighting them know well.

One of the most dramatic encounters between pirates and military personnel occurred in April 2009 when Navy Seal snipers ended a five-day standoff between American naval forces and a small group of armed marauders. Held hostage in an 18-foot lifeboat, the captain of an American cargo ship was in imminent danger of being killed by the pirates equipped with AK-47s and pistols. The captors demanded a $2 million ransom, but three of them made the mistake of poking their heads out of a rear hatch, and in the blink of an eye all three became members of an even darker fraternity: the quick and now-dead. The snipers’ shots were remarkable because they were fired from the deck of a rolling ship at a lifeboat that was 23 metres away in choppy sea.

Legion Magazine’s focus on Fredericton coincides with the navy’s 100th anniversary, and our time on board resulted in hundreds of interviews and more than 2,400 photos, all focused on rarely reported or rarely seen moments. For an overview on Fredericton’s time in and around the Arabian Sea, including how the ship worked with other coalition forces, stick with the Blue Course. To check out the risky role and operations of the boarding party, go Gold, and for a logbook on how one civilian adjusted to life at sea, chart the Green Course. In the July/August and September/October issues we’ll continue with all three, examining other parts of this mission as well as the counter-piracy effort. We’ll take an even more detailed look at the ship, including the logistics of sending it and its company to sea for six months.

The Blue Course: In The Gulf, Part 1

We are moving at 90 knots or roughly 170 kilometres an hour—still within minutes after whirling away from the rise and fall of Fredericton’s flight deck.

Mom is 16 years old. Stalker is nearly 50. Both are showing their age, but capable of reaching beyond their intended years to patrol vast stretches of ocean as part of Combined Task Force-150 (counter-terrorism) or Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (counter-piracy).

Stalker’s job is to go out twice a day—on two-hour missions—to investigate large or small “vessels of interest,” mostly Ark-like cargo or fishing launches known as dhows, ranging in size from 15 to 20 metres. Most times these deep, wooden-hulled vessels are fishing or plying the ancient trade routes in pursuit of legitimate maritime trade and commerce. Life on board the typical dhow is crowded, messy and dangerous—with long days being tossed back and forth under the blazing sun. A toilet is a hole over the stern. A place to sleep is a few feet of deck space or the top of a wheelhouse with maybe a tarp as cover. Many dhows are heavily laden with sheep and goats, and all manner of sights and smells that accompany sheep and goats. Some, however, are used to smuggle illicit drugs, weapons and very bad people back and forth through a region well-known for harbouring and supporting the exploits of very bad people.

Stalker, with the deep, black gaze of her skull and crossbones war art staring forward from just above the cockpit, soon begins to climb—turning and then passing through mist—as she scans the horizon and the surface below; ready to report to Mom whenever she spots a vessel, whether it is a dhow, wooden skiff, fibreglass runabout or even something as small as a shasha, a boat made out of palm fronds usually found closer to the U.A.E. Key to it all is the search for what are called  “tripwires,” anything out of the ordinary. It could be something as obvious as a dhow sailing without a state flag or having an unusual number of people on board. If a closer look is needed, Mom will close the gap and dispatch an armed approach or boarding party. Fredericton and her boarding party would participate in about 10 of these during our visit, and while no illicit cargo was found, the boardings reinforced CTF-150’s presence.

Combined Task Force 150 has been around since 9/11, and Canada has been involved since day one. Two years ago the multinational force was led by Canadian Commodore Bob Davidson, now Rear-Admiral Davidson. Canadian ships other than Fredericton know these waters well. One of the more recent examples is HMCS Winnipeg’s role in thwarting a pirate attack on a Maltese cargo ship in May 2009.

“Our patrol area is about 20 miles off the Iranian and Pakistani coast,” explains the commander of Fredericton, who at age 39 is 10 years younger than the ship’s embarked Sea King. “We’ll remain here for the next while and then perhaps head back down towards Yemen again. It will depend on what we are assigned to, but I expect we will be doing that up until the end of March.”

The ship’s patrol area is roughly 110 miles by 60 miles, but, as her captain points out, it can vary, depending on what “assets and what type of intelligence CTF-150 collects and where the targeted vessels are coming from at any given moment. It is really intelligence based. Information is generated from many sources, and that information is pushed to the ships and we can then individually target where we want our patrols, and try to find specific vessels to board, looking for illicit cargo.

“Often it is narcotics because the trade and shipment of that raises funds that can be used for fairly serious business ashore, including Afghanistan. This is illicit business that can ultimately hurt people, including our folks, on the ground there. So it is all linked….”

Opium produced in land-locked Afghanistan can make it to sea via Pakistan. It is loaded onto dhows and shipped through the Gulf of Oman to where it can be sent to hubs in Africa, the Middle East or further afield to Europe and North America. The proceeds make it back to Afghanistan in the form of money or weapons, including Improvised Explosive Devices.

It was just such a device that ended the life of Leading Seaman Michael Kennedy’s younger brother in 2007. “Kevin served with 2nd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment,” explained Kennedy, one of nearly 250 personnel on board Fredericton. “He was with Hotel Company. They were on their last patrol before heading into Kandahar, about to go on their decompression leave. They were in a LAV III, about 75 kilometres to the west in Helmand Province. The IED struck the rear troop compartment. Six were killed, including Kevin. One guy, Corporal Shaun Fevens, who is a good friend of mine today, survived because he was the lookout…. The blast or shock wave sent him out of the vehicle, but he had a lot of injuries—shrapnel pretty much head to toe, and fractures in his legs….”

The commander of Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) is also quick to recognize the linkages between what is going on in the Gulf and what is happening elsewhere in the region. “Whether you are talking about the insurgents—the enemy—al-Qaida, other terrorist groups, or talking about terrorist groups in the Arab Peninsula or in Eastern Africa, there is a link between them,” said Lieutenant-General Marc Lessard. “By having maritime operations you are working to ensure the link between those terrorist organizations in Afghanistan is impeded in the transition to the Arab Peninsula or even Eastern Africa.

“It is a coalition effort. If we board a vessel and seize some terrorist out here, we may not be helping Canadian troops right away. We may be helping coalition troops, but helping Canadian troops indirectly as well as the people of Afghanistan. It depends. There are many variables. The main thing we have to understand is that it is one theatre from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border right up to Eastern Africa.”

The man leading CTF-150, Commodore Richard Menhinick, said the number of coalition ships in his force varies, but at the moment there are more than half a dozen, including those from Australia, Britain, France, Germany, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. The closest Fredericton got to another coalition ship occurred during what is called a RAS or Replenishment A Sea. More on this in Part 2.

When contacted from the ship by Legion Magazine, Menhinick’s first order of business was to congratulate Canada on its gold medal hockey performance at Vancouver. This was soon followed by: “The Canadian navy is first-rate. It is a modern, highly trained navy…. It is one of those navies that can just come into an operation and be effective from day one.”

Menhinick said the contribution of maritime patrol aircraft cannot be overlooked, and Fredericton’s Sea King is helping to “build a complete picture” of the area. Asked if the overall effort is paying off, he said, “Yes, absolutely, but it takes a continued presence—the persistence of patrol. It is the task of gaining good knowledge of the pattern of life at sea. And it is just as dependent on the goodwill of law-abiding fishermen and traders of the region to help us with that information and make sure that they know we are here to help them, and that is how we build the picture. It is not about a single major incident…we will occasionally get those. And I know it doesn’t play well on the nightly news, but it is about just going out there and doing our job so people ashore can live much better.”

When asked for numbers or a few specific examples of recent counter-terrorism activity, the commodore declined, citing operational reasons. “I publically can’t get into specifics, but I can assure you that there are examples that show we are being very effective.”

“It’s not just the number of boardings, number of terrorists captured—it is the deterrence factor,” added Lessard. “The people engaged, or thinking about engaging, themselves in activities that support terrorism know their ability to sail unimpeded does not exist anymore.”

“This is an extremely busy piece of ocean,” added Fredericton’s Executive Officer, Lieutenant-Commander Dan Charlebois. “There is all sorts of coastal dhow traffic and maybe one in 200 dhows has illegal cargo—that’s a total guess, but they really only need to have one filled with opium to get through to make a big difference in their operations.”

Still heading east and reaching roughly 500 feet with the 9,225-kilogram helicopter, Captain Adam Power of 423 Squadron gives everyone a wider view of the patrol area. Helping out are Capt. Elton Learning of Stephenville, Nfld., tactical officer Captain Rene Laporte, who when asked where he’s from, thinks before answering, “Base Brat, Canada,” and Master Corporal Kelvin Card, a lean and lanky airborne electronic sensor operator who has the added duty of photographing any vessel Stalker swoops in to investigate.

With Mom no longer in sight, it is—for the initiated and uninitiated—an exercise in trust to be out here; over an ocean you could easily disappear into, never to be heard from again. You can’t help but think about your wife and kids back home and the bad things written about the Sea King, but you quietly tell yourself that you’re in good hands, in an aircraft that is old, yes, but well flown, and rigorously maintained by people who know every inch of it—from the reserve oil pan to the dials and switches, which bear a strange resemblance to an old Pontiac my dad used to own. “I’d let my kids fly in it,” offered one of the grinning maintenance guys just prior to our whirl above the waves.

The Green Course: Reporter’s Logbook, Part 1

Sunday, Feb. 14 to Monday, Feb. 15:
Depart Ottawa for Dubai, with connection in frozen Frankfurt. Jetlag erodes patience with annoying German couple who hit the call bell five times within 20 minutes of finding their seats on Jumbo. Smiling flight attendant worthy of Nobel Peace Prize. Jumbo has problem: the door won’t close or there’s a tiny, annoying light somewhere saying the door won’t close. Maintenance men come and go—minutes turn into hour. We push back from the gate and roar away; hoping like hell the door is closed.

Tuesday, Feb. 16:
Arrive Dubai around 2 a.m. Dark, but through Jumbo window the city’s outskirts look like a sprawling power grid in the middle of an enormous sand trap. Off the plane, follow polished catwalk above indoor mall. Notice what could be a Lamborghini or some otherexotic sports car way down there for someone with a wheelbarrow full of dirhams. Life is either good or false. Arrive Passport Control, ready with papers, including the letter—written in Arabic and English—from Canadian Expeditionary Force Command, summing up why after flying all this way I’m only sticking around for a day or two, and when I do leave, it won’t be through an airport, but in a Canadian warship. Fresh is the story of an assassinated Hamas leader in a downtown hotel; fresher are stories on how tight the security is. Passport Control Man doesn’t smile, doesn’t even look at the letter, just stamps me in and says, “Carry on, sir.”

Grab taxi and weave onto boulevard populated by chrome-covered Land Rovers, Bentleys, Mercedes. Looks like a North American freeway minus economy cars, and 100 times more dangerous: 332 traffic deaths in 2007. And the road I’m on now—Shaikh Zayed—tops the list of black spots. Check into hotel, fall asleep in a haze of jetlag, mumbling something about not being watched; dream about getting even with annoying German couple.

Wednesday, Feb. 17:
Make contact with Public Affairs Officer Lieutenant (N) Brian Owens and Sergeant Darren Stacey, a member of HMCS Fredericton’s forward logistics team. Drive to nearby port and find HMCS Fredericton hidden smartly behind wall of sea containers. Shown to No. 12 Mess on Three Deck, that’s one deck above and behind the after-engine room. My rack (bunk) is lowest in a stack of three opposite another stack of three.

Thursday, Feb. 18:
Breakfast in wardroom, followed by commander’s briefing on bridge. Scheduled to leave port at 0800 hours, but local authority closes port to all shipping on account of something Canadian ships have apparently never seen before: fog—huh, fancy that. Soon on our way, conduct boarding party and manoeuvres with U.A.E. navy. Sunshine, hardly a ripple: sea snakes, jelly fish, massive algae blooms. Return to 12 Mess. First night in narrow rack. Getting in works best with a combination, backwards jackknife dive, finishing with half twist. Drift off knowing night will give way to a morning pipe call, followed by the words: “Good morning Fredericton.”

The Gold Course: Tripwires, Part 1

OK. Imagine this. You’re hunkered down in a Rigid-hulled Inflatable Boat—a kind of Zodiac on testosterone. You’re way out here in the Gulf of Oman, part of the vast Arabian Sea. There isn’t a speck of land in sight, and as you and the other members of the boarding party whip across the breaking waves and occasionally “find air” you keep a watchful eye on the vessel you’re approaching, looking for anything unusual, any “tripwires” that have gone unnoticed before the team embarked the RHIB from HMCS Fredericton.

It could be something being thrown discreetly over the far side; the sudden appearance of an additional person on board; the lack of a certain type of fishing gear on a fishing vessel; visible scars or bruises on a passenger.

The vessel of interest may not know you’re coming, but most times they do and they’re waiting for you—even though when you embark the RHIB, the boat is tactically hidden from the “vessel of interest” by Fredericton’s massive grey superstructure.

Your personal kit, which weighs roughly 60 to 70 pounds, includes a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, a tactical webbing vest, bullet-proof vest with ceramic plates, two life vests, a locator beacon, sawed-off shotgun, ammunition, (12 rounds for the shotgun and magazines for the Sig Sauer), knife, plastic handcuffs, small truncheon, flashlight, ear defenders, safety glasses, communications set, first aid kit.

If you are part of the search wave—the second wave—you will have an array of drug detection equipment, including swab kits and various sprays. Someone will have a pole camera called a bore scope, used to drill into a wall or bulkhead. It comes with a fibre optic cable which allows you to look inside without smashing the place to smithereens. “It means you don’t have to take a hammer to anything,” said one member of the team, who like all the other members, can’t be identified. “Before all this new equipment arrived, they would board ships with a notebook, flashlight, a bag of hammers and some pry bars.”

Computer technology makes it possible to collect biometrics, including finger prints and iris scans. But the technology is advancing faster than policy can be written. “You have to be careful about who you share the information with, and we have to be sure what it is going to be used for,” said Lieutenant-Commander Mike McKay, CEFCOM’s international desk officer for Fredericton. “So from the start, we have to make sure the guys equipped with the technology know what they can and can’t collect.”

Meanwhile, you and the others on the RHIB are getting closer—approaching the dhow from her stern, looking for tripwires. Fredericton is right there—keeping a very close eye on the entire evolution.

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