US amphibious assault ship joins drills in South Korea

SsangyongC&E Co

23/03/2023 05:12

By Soo-hyang Choi
       BUSAN, South Korea, March 23 (Reuters) - South Korean
and U.S. troops launched their largest amphibious landing drills
in years involving a U.S. amphibious assault ship, officials
said on Thursday, a day after North Korea tested four long-range
cruise missiles.  
    The USS Makin Island docked at a naval base in the
southeastern port city of Busan on Wednesday to join the
Ssangyong exercise, which kicked off on Monday near Pohang on
South Korea's east coast and will last until April 3. 
    About 12,000 sailors and marines from the two countries will
take part, as will 30 warships, 70 aircraft and 50 amphibious
assault vehicles, the South Korean military said.
    Hours before the ship docked, North Korea fired four cruise
missiles off its east coast, South Korea said, in apparent
protest of ongoing drills by the U.S. and South Korea.
    Captain Tony Chavez, commanding officer of the Makin Island,
said the launches were "escalatory," and that the combined
exercises with South Korea are aimed at building "muscle memory"
to respond to a crisis if needed. 
    "It does not matter where that threat is coming from. We are
ensuring that we are able to amass forces to maintain maritime
and air superiority and defend Northeast Asia or all of the
Indo-Pacific region," Chavez told reporters aboard the ship.
    The Makin Island carries 10 F-35 stealth fighters in
addition to dozens of armoured vehicles. The ship's welldeck,
which can be flooded to provide direct access to the sea, allows
it to launch and recover landing craft and other amphibious
vehicles, the U.S. military said.
    "Our biggest thing is that we have all the Marines," said
the Makin Island's public affairs officer, Lieutenant Jarred
Reid-Dixon. "We can take people on here and put them on the
ground to seize an area if we had to."
    The allies were scheduled to conclude 11 days of their
regular springtime exercises, called Freedom Shield 23, on
Thursday, though they have other field training exercises
continuing under the name Warrior Shield. 
    Pyongyang has long bristled at exercises conducted by South
Korean and U.S. forces, saying they are preparation for an
invasion of the North. South Korea and the U.S. say the
exercises are purely defensive.
    Last week, North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic
missile into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan in a
"warning to the enemies," and conducted what it called a nuclear
counterattack simulation against the United States and South
Korea over the weekend.

 (Reporting by Soo-hyang Choi. Editing by Gerry Doyle)
 ((soohyang.choi@thomsonreuters.com;))