Photo By Lt.Cmdr. Seth Koenig | BEAUFORT SEA (March 10, 2022) - Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Wilkins, right, and Navy Diver...... read more read more
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U.S. NAVY ICE CAMP QUEENFISH – The frigid water under the Arctic ice can be a terrifying place.
“You don’t have direct access to air if you need to get air. That’s always in the back of your mind when you’re in an environment like this,” said Navy diver Lt. Cmdr. Christopher Wilkins. “You’re working under ice that’s seven feet thick in some places, and the water can be thousands of feet deep. There’s almost no limit to how far down you could fall.”
Wilkins is leading a 12-person team from the Pearl Harbor, Hawaii,-based Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One (MDSU-1) to the Arctic, where the divers will participate in the Navy’s biennial Ice Exercise (ICEX) 2022.
Alongside fellow divers from Underwater Construction Team One (UCT-1), Wilkins’ team is charged with diving under the Arctic ice to recover exercise torpedoes fired by the participating fast attack submarines - the Virginia-class USS Illinois (SSN 786) and Los Angeles-class Pasadena (SSN 752).
“Under the best of conditions, Navy divers do very dangerous work,” said Rear Adm. Richard Seif, commander of the Navy’s Undersea Warfighting Development Center in Groton, Connecticut, and ranking officer of ICEX 2022. “Diving under the Arctic ice adds another degree of difficulty. ICEX gives our divers an opportunity to work and train in the Arctic, gaining crucial experience that would be impossible to replicate anywhere else on Earth.”
Based at Ice Camp Queenfish, ICEX 2022’s camp built on a sheet of floating ice 160 nautical miles from the coast of Alaska, the dive teams are transported to the locations of the torpedoes by helicopter.
There, they set up something like an ice-fishing hut and cut a hole in the ice nearby. The Navy divers plunge into the cold water and swim to the torpedo, which by then is motionless and has floated up to the underside of the Arctic ice.
The highly trained divers then navigate the bumpy under-ice environment and bring the expended torpedo back to the entry hole, where it’s hitched to a cord and lifted from the water by a helicopter.
Ice fishing for torpedoes, one might say.
“We’re required to be able to operate in the Arctic and in extreme cold conditions,” said Wilkins. “Based out of Pearl Harbor, we don’t have many opportunities to get that experience locally.”
The MDSU-1 and UTC-1 divers are trading off on the torpedo recoveries, and getting additional training dives back at Ice Camp Queenfish.
“It’s a great opportunity to flex that capability,” said Wilkins.
ICEX 2022 is a joint combined exercise that takes place over the course of a month north of the Arctic circle, with personnel stationed at the temporary Ice Camp Queenfish, built on a floe of Arctic ice in international waters, as well as in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and two operational U.S. Navy submarines. ICEX allows the Navy to assess its operational readiness in the Arctic, increase experience in the region, advance understanding of the Arctic environment, and continue to develop relationships with other services, allies and partner organizations.
ICEX 2022 is taking place in the Arctic region at the same time as U.S. Northern Command's Arctic Edge, a biennial exercise designed to provide realistic and effective training for participants using the premier training locations available throughout Alaska, ensuring the ability to rapidly deploy and operate in the Arctic. Arctic Edge takes place over the course of three weeks and will have approximately 1,000 participants, including U.S. and Canadian service members, U.S. Coast Guardsmen, and government employees from the U.S. Department of Defense and Canada’s Department of National Defence.
| Date Taken: | 02.28.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.12.2022 19:30 |
| Story ID: | 415479 |
| Location: | BEAUFORT SEA |
| Web Views: | 947 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Navy divers plunge under Arctic ice to recover torpedoes, by LCDR Seth Koenig, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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