DDGs leave Hawaii for west Pacific, Middle East

[unhappycamper]

DDGs leave Hawaii for west Pacific, Middle East
By William Cole - Honolulu Advertiser
Posted : Wednesday Jan 21, 2009 18:03:11 EST

PEARL HARBOR — Three Hawaii-based destroyers and more than 1,000 sailors set sail for the western Pacific yesterday — one ship as an escort for a strike group headed to the Middle East and the other two as part of a policy change for U.S. Pacific Fleet sending Hawaii ships west instead of to Southern California for training.

The “Mid-Pacific Surface Combatant Operational Employment” policy takes advantage of Hawaii’s forward location to combine training and a real-world presence in the western Pacific, the Navy said.

The Pearl Harbor destroyer Chung-Hoon is heading west with the San Diego-based Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group. The amphibious assault ship Boxer, which has helicopters and Harrier jump jets, spent several days in Hawaii for sonar and land-based training at Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island.

The Boxer strike group is headed to the Middle East. The destroyers Hopper and Paul Hamilton, meanwhile, left Hawaii for the “operational employment” training, the Navy said.

“It’s a more efficient use of time. It ends up being less time away from home for training purposes,” said Capt. William A. Kearns, commodore of Destroyer Squadron 31. “They can do training and do deployed missions — operate with allied navies, (and) do port visits out in the western Pacific during the time that they would have in the past operated in Southern California.”


Rest of article at: http://navytimes.com/news/2009/01/gns_hawaii_deployment_012109/%2e