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French to arrive for NATO exercise
By JACK DORSEY, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 26, 2005



NORFOLK — Nearly 3,000 French sailors and marines will arrive in Norfolk on Friday aboard the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle to prepare for a multinational exercise that is the harbinger of NATO’s first rapid-response force.

As many as 17,000 international sailors from five countries will participate in the 18-ship exercise in the Western Atlantic. Not all of the foreign ships will visit Norfolk. Most are headed to New York for Fleet Week.

The exercise is one step in the certification process of forces that will become part of the NATO Response Force, the first international military arm designed to rapidly respond to trouble spots within the alliance’s area of responsibility.

The Norfolk-based carrier Theodore Roosevelt Strike Group and the French carrier are heading the exercise, which includes U.S., French, Canadian, British and Spanish ships.

The navies will conduct coalition strike training, aviation cross-deck training, surface and anti-surface warfare and related unit level training events, according to Vice Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, commander of the 2nd Fleet, headquartered in Norfolk. Fitzgerald and his staff will oversee the exercise, which is a graduated certification process for the maritime NRF package, scheduled to be fully in place by 2006.

The French aircraft carrier is an 856-foot long, 40,000-ton, nuclear-powered ship that can operate 40 aircraft, using catapults, including Super Eten*dard jets, three E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft and NH-90 helicopters.

The foreign ships included in the exercise are:

nFrance – the carrier Charles de Gaulle, with a crew of 1,950, plus 800 marines; the frigate Tourville, crew 301; frigate Jean Bart, 225 crew; tanker Meuse, crew 164; submarine Rubis, crew 66.

nCanada – destroyer Athabaskan, crew 314; and three frigates, Ville de Quebec, St. Johns and Halifax, each with a crew of 239.

nUnited Kingdom –

destroyer Nottingham, crew 287

nSpain – frigate Alvaro de Bazan, crew 245.

nUnited States – carriers Theodore Roosevelt and Eisenhower; cruiser San Jacinto; destroyers Stout, Donald Cook, and Oscar Austin; fast attack submarine Norfolk, all from Norfolk; Air Wings One, Three and Seven, based at Oceana Naval Air Station, Virginia Beach; Reconnaissance Wings Five, from Brunswick, Maine, and Eleven, from Jacksonville, Fla., both flying P-3 Orion patrol aircraft.

Related Link:

http://www.news.navy.mil/search/disp...story_id=18516

smilingassassin

Quite surprizing that Canada has a larger group of ships than the British, what gives there?!