96 Ready Reserve Force (RRF) ships, 25 Marines for 30 days of combat - food, water, prepositioning force ships, eight Fast Sealift fuel, millions of pounds of ammunition for Ships (FSS), two hospital ships, and two avia- aircraft, artillery and small arms, construction tion logistics support ships. materials and medical supplies. The balance of the equipment for the 1st MEF arrived from SEALIFT DURING DESERT SHIELDI Guam aboard the ships of MPS Squadron ST()RM. Within hours of the initial deploy- THREE. Delivering all the equipment deliv- ment orders, Navy and civilian merchant ma- ered by MPS ships to the 45,000 men of the 1st rinesailors aboard MilitarySealiftCommand's Marine Division would have required 2100 (MSC) sealift force ships swung into action. lifts by C-5s, our largest military transport Maritime l3repositioning Ships (MES) loaded aircraft. with Marine Corps supplies and equipment from Guam, Saipan and Diego Garda headed MSC's eight fast sealift ships (FSS), the for Saudi Arabia. fastest cargo ships in the world, sped eastward at 33 knots, carrying 24,000 tons of equipment As in previous large logistic support for the Army's 24th Infantry (Mechanized) operations during World War II, the Korean Division and the 1st Corps Support Command. conflict and the Vietnam War, more than 90 Although normally on 96-hour standby, the percent of the heavy equipment, ammunition, first FSS, USNS CAPELLA (T-AKR 293), was fuel and other supplies for DESERT SHIELD/ ready to deploy in only 48 hours. The next two STORM was carried by sealift. The strategic FSSs were only a day behind CAPELLA. A sealift mission includes both surge shipping typical FSS load included more than 700 Army during initial mobilization and resupply or vehicles such as M-1 Abrams tanks, Bradley sustainment shipping. fighting vehicles and fuel trucks. The first three ships of MPS Squadron Ten afloat prepositioning ships (APS) TWO raced from their Diego Garcia homeport carrying Army and Air Force equipment, fuel to reach Saudi Arabia 15 August, marking the and supplies also headed for Middle East wa- first use of the MPS in an actual crisis. Within ters. Aboard the APS MV Noble Star the four days of their arrival in the port of Jubail, sprawling, 28-acre Fleet Hospital 5 was stored Navy cargo handlers averaging 100 lift-hours in over 400 international standardized con- per day offloaded more equipment and sup- tainers. Those containers were soon offloaded plies from the three 755-foot ships than could in the first-ever deployment of a Navy fleet have been moved by 3,000 C-141 cargo flights. hospital. The 16,500 Marines of the 7th Marine Expedi- tionary Brigade (MEB), a component of the 1st MSC called on 40 Ready Reserve Force Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF), arrived (RRF) ships to provide the surge sealift capa- via the Military Airlift Command. They "mar- bility needed to sustain support for U.S. forces ried-up" with the MPS equipment and were in Saudi Arabia. Civilian mariners answered ready for combat on 25 August - the first the call and crews were quickly assembled. heavy ground combat capability in-theater. MSC also chartered commercial vessels to sup- port the flow of cargo to Saudi Arabia. The five ships of MPS Squadron TWO brought the essentials to support the 7th MEB Because Iraq was laying mines in the - 28 -
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