The U.S. Army has deployed airborne soldiers from within Alaska and additional soldiers from Hawaii and Washington to isolated Shemya Island in the Aleutians, it announced late last week.
U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 11th Airborne Division, board a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III assigned to the 176th Wing, Alaska Air National Guard, ahead of a force projection operation to Shemya Island in the North Pacific Ocean, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, Sept. 11, 2024. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Hunter Hites). Photo: Alaska Beacon
Portions of three Army units have been deployed to Shemya Island off the coast of Alaska in response to recent Russian and Chinese air and sea probes into the Arctic region, service officials said.
Photo: Google Earth
The deployment, first reported by Stars and Stripes, is a test of the Army’s ability to move fast, said the commanding general of the 11th Airborne Division, based at Fort Wainwright, near Fairbanks.
Elements of the 11th Airborne Division and the 1st and 3rd Multi Domain Task Forces landed Thursday on Shemya Island, which is part of the Aleutian Islands. The unit is made up of about 130 soldiers, said John Pennell, a spokesman for the 11th Airborne Division. That is the equivalent of an Army combat infantry company.
The 2.7-mile-wide Shemya island is 1,200 miles west of Anchorage in the archipelago of Alaskan islands. Photo: Google Earth
“Testing ourselves with this operation and others like it is critical to our nation’s defense and the preservation of a free and open Indo-Pacific,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph Hilbert in a written statement. “Our ability to deploy combat-credible forces quickly and effectively to any location, no matter how remote, is critical to supporting the nation and our strong relationships with allies and partner nations.”
Major Gen. Joseph Hilbert assumed command of United States Army Alaska and the 11th Airborne Division on July 1, 2024. He previously served the director of the Force Development Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8, at the Pentagon. Photo: jber.jb.mil
“As the number of adversarial exercises increases around Alaska and throughout the region, including June’s joint Russian-Chinese bomber patrol, the operation to Shemya Island demonstrates the division’s ability to respond to events in the Indo-Pacific or across the globe, with a ready, lethal force within hours,” Hilbert said in a statement issued Friday.
It’s the first time since 2018 that Fort Wainwright soldiers have deployed to Shemya, the isolated home of Eareckson Air Station and the closest American military base to Russia.
Eareckson is 280 miles from the nearest Russia-owned island and 645 miles from Petropavlovsk, the capital of the Russian territory of Kamchatka.
Radar located at Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island, Alaska. (North American Aerospace Defense Command). The radar is primarily designed to pick up and monitor Russian, Chinese and other ICBM missile launches and tests. Photo: Stars and Stripes
The deployed task forces operate a variety of equipment, including two HIMARS, a kind of mobile rocket artillery currently used by Ukraine in its war against Russia.
A HIMARS unit previously deployed to Shemya in 2020, and Navy SEALs conducted an exercise on the island last September.
An airman with the Alaska Air National Guard guides a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, from the back of a C-17 Globemaster III after landing on Shemya Island, Alaska, on Sept. 12, 2024. Photo: Brandon Vasquez / U.S. Army
Advance elements of the units arrived Sept. 8, with more arriving on Sept. 12. That coincides with Ocean 2024, a joint military exercise between China and Russia in the Sea of Japan.
Separate from that exercise, six Russian patrol aircraft flew through an air defense zone near Alaska between Friday and Sunday, NORAD reported. The air defense zone is in international airspace, and no foreign aircraft entered American airspace.
In June, Russia and China conducted an unprecedented joint bomber patrol through the air defense zone, Hilbert noted.
“As the number of adversarial exercises increases around Alaska and throughout the region, including June’s joint Russian-Chinese bomber patrol, the operation to Shemya Island demonstrates the division’s ability to respond to events in the Indo-Pacific or across the globe, with a ready, lethal force within hours,” he said.
The Army did not say when the Shemya deployment will conclude, but prior operations have ended before the start of winter, which brings extraordinarily bad weather to the Aleutians.
SourThe Arctic is also considered the northern edge of the Indo-Pacific region, which reaches south toward China and Southeast Asia, and west to the eastern edge of the Indian subcontinent, “an area representing 50% of the world’s population,” according to the 11th Airborne.
Source: Alaska Beacon, Stars and Stripes
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