A visiting party including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations, walks towards the Virginia-class, fast-attack submarine USS Indiana during Operation Ice Camp 2024 in March 2024. Franchetti awarded the Arctic Service Medal to the Indiana crew on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2024, during a ceremony at Navy Submarine Base New London in Connecticut. (Scott Barnes/Navy)
The crew of the USS Indiana, a Virginia-class, fast-attack submarine that spent three weeks in the seas near the North Pole during Operation Ice Camp 2024, were awarded the Navy’s Arctic Service Medal on Tuesday.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, presented the medals to officers and sailors during a ceremony at Naval Submarine Base New London, Conn.
The Arctic Service Medal is awarded to Navy and Marine personnel who show “excellence and significant contributions to national security and maritime superiority in the Arctic region,” according to a Navy statement.
Australian, American, and British personnel are among those displaying flags on the ice floe in the Beaufort Sea around the surfaced USS Indiana during Operation Ice Camp 2024. (Sarah Niles/Navy)
“Your three-week operation during Ice Camp advanced the lethality of our submarine force and showcased to the world that our Navy can operate anywhere and anytime — in any maritime environment,” Franchetti said at the ceremony.
Cmdr. Kyle McVay, commanding officer of the USS Indiana, said the award was due to the accomplishments of the crew.
“Receiving the Arctic Service Medal is a testament to the hard work and dedication of every sailor onboard,” he said.
The annual Operation Ice Camp exercise is held to advance military capabilities in the Arctic. The activity includes a submarine rapidly surfacing through the ice so the ship’s tower is above the surface. Personnel then set up exterior command posts and other operations on the floe.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, speaks with sailors on the USS Indiana on March 13, 2024, during Operation Ice Camp 2024. (Scott Barnes/Navy)
The Navy first held Operation Ice Camp in 1946 as Ice Exercise.
The 2024 Operation Ice Camp included Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force, and Space Force personnel. Allied military representatives from Canada, Britain, France, and Australia also participated.
While Franchetti personally gave the award to the USS Indiana crew, it was simultaneously awarded to the crews of other fast-attack submarines at the New London base who have taken part in Arctic operations. It also went to civilians from the Navy’s Undersea Warfare Development Fighting Center and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard who planned and supported the Arctic mission.
Navy officials said Wednesday that they did not know how many medals were awarded as part of the mission recognition by Franchetti on Tuesday.
The Navy said it has increased its focus on the Arctic as climate change has opened more sea routes in the region.
In a January 2021 “Blue Arctic” strategy report, Navy leaders called on the service to “operate more assertively” as Russia was reopening bases that it had closed following the Cold War collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The report also said China was expanding its military operations “on, below, and above Arctic waters.”
The Arctic Service Medal’s official criteria states it is awarded to sailors and Marine Corps personnel assigned to a unit that takes part in an “ice-covered strait transit such as the Bering Strait or Barrow Strait, or a unit that conducted a transit of the North Pole.”
The award also goes to crews that conduct vertical surfacing through ice or a submarine that conducts at least seven days of military operations under ice zones, pack ice, or is assigned to an ice camp or operations center set up on an ice floe.
