Vice Adm. John Wade, commander of U.S. 3rd Fleet and head of the Rim of the Pacific exercise, speaks with reporters June 27, 2024, at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. Rear Adm. Kazushi Yokota of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, right, is the exercise’s vice commander. (Wyatt Olson/Stars and Stripes)
JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii — The massive former warship chosen for sinking at this year’s Rim of the Pacific exercise should survive “multiple weapons” before it goes down, according to the vice admiral running the exercise.
The former USS Tarawa, an 820-foot-long amphibious assault ship, was towed to Hawaii several weeks ago in preparation for being sunk during RIMPAC, which began Thursday and runs through Aug. 2.
“It’s a large vessel, as you know, and it’s giving us an opportunity to conduct multiple serials, or multiple events, with multiple weapons,” Vice Adm. John Wade said Thursday during a harbor-side news conference at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
“And so, it gives us an opportunity to have a hulk that will last for hopefully a long amount of time, so we can get all of our drills through and successfully executed,” he said.
Wade, previously in charge of defueling massive tanks at the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility near the joint base, offered no further details about the sinking drill.
Nor did he provide specifics about the roughly 30 “experimentation” events he said would test “new capabilities or use existing capabilities in different ways.”
“There’s going to be a number of experiments for the U.S. but also with our allies and partners,” Wade said.
“I’m not going to go into specifics,” he said. “But if I were to broadly cover how they will be organized, it’s how we sense the environment, how we can conduct fires, how we move, how we sustain. And I would also highlight manned-unmanned integration. I think those are really important areas — and that’s not just only in the air, but in the sea as well.”
The biennial exercise, which first ran in 1971 and is touted as the world’s largest international series of maritime military drills, has drawn 29 participating nations that brought 40 ships, 150 aircraft, three submarines, 14 land-based armed forces and 25,000 personnel.
This summer’s events include RIMPAC’s largest-ever humanitarian aid and disaster relief drills, which will involve eight countries, five ships, five landing craft, five aircraft and more than 2,500 participants.
Aircraft include F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance planes and V-22 Osprey, which will operate out of Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam and Marine Corps Base Hawaii on Oahu. Some events will be conducted out of the Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island.
Participating armed forces come from Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Peru, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tonga, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Wade declined to answer numerous questions about Taiwan and its relationship with China that were posed by international media, saying only that the island was outside his area of responsibility as commander of 3rd Fleet.
Beijing regards the democratically governed island as a part of China that must come under its control at some point.
Wade said that China was not invited to participate in RIMPAC because of that nation’s “reluctance to adhere to international rules or norms and standards.”
China participated for the first time in 2014 and returned in 2016. In 2018 it was “disinvited” over Beijing’s continuing effort to expand and militarize small islands and reefs in the South China Sea.
The exercise, Wade said, was all about building relationships with like-minded nations and learning to operate together in the event of anything from a natural disaster to armed conflict.
“Honestly, RIMPAC does not single out a particular nation or send messages to anybody,” he said. “We’re really focused on enduring maritime force capabilities to ensure peace and prosperity in the vital Indo-Pacific region.
