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Bataan heads for Haiti

ABOARD THE AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULT SHIP BATAAN — For most of the Bataan’s sailors, January was supposed to be a quiet month, preparing for a four-month shipyard availability.

“We just returned from a seven-month deployment to 5th and 6th Fleets on Dec. 8, and here we are underway again,” Chief Mass Communications Specialist (SW/AW) Tony Sisti said.

Sisti said many sailors took leave over the winter holidays before reporting back to work as a full crew Jan. 12.

It was then the crew found out the yards were off, for now. Instead, the new mission is to aid in the humanitarian relief efforts following the massive earthquake that struck Haiti on Tuesday.

“We’d basically cleaned out many of the ship’s food storerooms, preparing for the yard period, and had to reverse that and get ready to go in a couple of days — a big job for the supply department,” Sisti said. “Now we’ll head down to North Carolina to pick up about 1,300 Marines from the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit — along with portions of their air combat element.”

Bataan and the dock landing ships Carter Hall and Fort McHenry pulled away from Norfolk, Va., on Thursday evening. The ships were scheduled to pull into Moorehead City, N.C., on Friday to load the Marines and their gear pier-side. Helicopters will be used to help speed the process.

Also available to help with transporting the Marines aboard are three landing craft air cushions from Assault Craft Unit 4.

“The goal is to get the ship loaded and headed to Haiti by [Saturday morning],” Sisti said. “Once out at sea, we’ll do a [replenishment] to bring on even more supplies we’ll need once we get down there.”

Normally, amphibious assault ships deploy exclusively with Marine aircraft onboard. But as with other humanitarian operations, such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the Indonesian tsunami relief, there will be a mix of Navy and Marine aircraft.

Still uncertain is what the ship and its aircraft will do there once they arrive at the devastated island nation.

“All that should come clear during the transit to Haiti,” Sisti said. “Right now, the goal is to get the rest of the team onboard and start heading in that direction.”

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