Sgt. Hunter Clark, an MV-22 tiltrotor crew chief for Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 165 (Reinforced), 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, signals ready for takeoff from the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer for a humanitarian assistance mission while underway in the East China Sea, Oct. 5, 2024. (Amelia Kang/U.S. Marine Corps)
U.S. Marines were preparing to fly 49 tons of American aid to typhoon victims in the northern Philippines on Monday, according to the commander of Marine Rotational Force — Southeast Asia.
The force’s arrival in the islands for a pair of drills coincided with Super Typhoon Krathon, which made landfall Sept. 30 in Cagayan province.
The Marines were ordered to help move supplies and food provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development to typhoon victims at Basco, on the northern island of Batan, rotational force commander Col. Stuart Glenn told Stars and Stripes by phone from Manila.
USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance was responding to the storm, which made landfall in Batanes province with sustained winds of 120 mph and up to 27 inches of rain, according to an agency post Saturday on social platform X.
“We are providing $500K to humanitarian partners on the ground to provide emergency shelter, water, sanitation & more,” the post said.
Philippine government officials the same day reported five deaths, hundreds of people displaced and almost 280,000 otherwise affected by the storm in the country’s north.
The rotational force, which deployed for three months last year, is on its third annual and “largest and longest” six-month mission, Glenn said.
An MV-22B Osprey with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 165 (Reinforced), 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, takes off from the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer in the East China Sea, Oct. 5, 2024. It was flying Marines to support a humanitarian assistance mission in the Philippines. (Amelia Kang/U.S. Marine Corps)
The force is augmented by a pair of KC-130J Super Hercules aircraft and 40 members of the Okinawa-based III Marine Expeditionary Force for the disaster-relief effort, he said.
Thirty Marines have loaded 98,000 pounds of items, including shelter materials and food, onto pallets at Villamor Air Base in Manila so the Super Hercules can fly it to Laoag, 220 miles to the north on the Philippines’ main island of Luzon, he said.
Ten more Marines and 40 local troops are at Laoag’s civilian airport preparing the pallets to fly farther north by MV-22B Osprey, he said.
Meanwhile, the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Pendleton, Calif., is steaming toward the Philippines in the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer, Glenn said.
The Boxer will be close enough to the Philippines on Tuesday to launch an Osprey to Laoag, collect the aid and deliver it to Basco, 190 miles to the north, he said. The tiltrotor aircraft was designed to carry a 20,000-pound load several hundred miles, according to Indo-Pacific Command.
Also on Monday, U.S. and Philippine troops kicked off the annual Sama Sama exercise with a ceremony at Subic Bay, just north of Manila, Glenn said.
The rotational force will send 120 Marines and sailors to Sama Sama — Tagalog for “together” — Capt. Mark McDonough, a spokesman for the force, said by email Monday.
The eighth iteration of the two-week exercise is aimed at honing U.S. and Philippine forces’ ability to work together, the U.S. Navy’s Singapore-based Destroyer Squadron 7 said in a statement Monday.
The training, which includes participants from Australia, Canada, France and Japan, will focus on anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, anti-air warfare and maritime domain awareness, according to the statement.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Howard and a P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft will join the drills, the statement said.
