FROM HANKO/UPINNEIMI A bright yellow rocket flashes in the cloudy sky. The last battle of the military exercise begins in the middle of the day.
The Coast Guards and the marines have advanced towards the sauna of Kajanus. It’s an architect Eliel Saarinen designed building at the tip of Upinniemi and a well-known landmark.
It takes some time for the banger cartridges to crackle. Fire stations seem to be on the rocks surrounding the sauna on both sides.
After the firing stops, the fighters come out of their holes. They bind the wounded and carry them on stretchers to the transport boat that has appeared on the shore.
Men and women in field suits wouldn’t be given much attention without a small flag on their shoulder. Some have the Finnish flag and others the American flag.
In this and last week’s military exercise, the Finnish coastal jaegers and the US marines trained together for the first time and in mixed teams.
Finnish soldiers have been training with NATO for 30 years, but mostly as separate teams.
Now even ordinary conscripts had an American marine next to them in the rain of fire.
– This has been the best exercise of my 33-year military career. The learning curve for all participants has been upward. Lessons have been learned at every level, from coast guard to commodore, says the commander, Commodore Marko Laaksonen.
The soldiers practiced a conflict situation where the enemy has invaded Finland and occupied parts of it. In such a situation, the military alliance NATO would come to the rescue and land with its troops on the coast of Finland.
The US amphibious assault ship would remain approximately 40-50 kilometers from the coast and serve as a base for the landing craft, helicopters and fighter jets it carries, as well as the soldiers who operate them.
The US Marine Corps operates on the coast in the same way as the Finnish Coastal Forces, but they also have the machines and equipment of the Navy Air Force at their disposal, which brings new elements to the training for the Finns.
There is still more to learn in order for the Finns who invested in traditional coastal defense to achieve NATO compatibility.
– Nothing major to shake though. The development needs are mostly related [tietoteknisten] for things like management systems, Laaksonen explains.
The American commander also says having thought about the compatibility of the forces in advance. 22. The colonel commanding the Marine Corps readiness group Paul Merida sees differences between the American and Finnish troops he leads, but less than he had anticipated.
– Until just over a month ago, I didn’t even know anyone from Finland. I had been in Estonia and Norway in exercises in which reservists participated, but I had no experience of such extensive utilization of the reserve. I am very impressed by how well Finnish conscripts and reservists play together with professional soldiers, says Merida.
During the exercise there was a heat wave in Finland. The next exercise might take place in the freezing cold, which would increase the demands even more.
– Coasts in different parts of the world are quite similar from our point of view. There are capeiks here in Finland, but our biggest challenges are related to weather conditions. We have been training for them in more northern waters, says Merida.
The latest command that brought the warship USS Kearsarge to Finland started in March. After the military exercise that has just ended on the southern coast of Finland, it is heading to Denmark. The USS Kearsarge will return to its home port in Norfolk, Virginia on the east coast of the United States in October.
Operating from Norfolk, US landing craft and aircraft carriers are responsible for the entire eastern hemisphere from the North Pole to the South Pole. There is a corresponding base on the west coast of the country in San Diego, and it is responsible for the Western Hemisphere.
The USS Kearsarge, christened 30 years ago, has participated in operations in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, among others. It was used as a support ship for American troops and equipment in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf.
However, the USS Kearsarge has also found itself in surprising situations recently.
Last October, the ship was training off the east coast of the United States, when a strange light phenomenon reportedly followed the ship.
The Marine Corps has confirmed that the incident was investigated as an unidentified aerial phenomenon, but the Pentagon has not agreed to tell or the US media more about it.
Many similar cases have been reported in the navy. Among other things, they have been suspected of being drones. The USS Kearsarge’s equipment currently includes anti-drone equipment, which was also on display when the ship visited Finland.
Read more about it here.
On a US landing craft everything feels at least ten times better than in Finland.
– There are helicopters and below deck landing craft that are integrated into the mother ship. The personnel is almost the size of the entire Finnish Navy, the head of the Naval Operations Center, the commander Toni Joutsia counts.
There are 130 people working on Finland’s largest warship, around 2000 on the USS Kearsarge. That’s a lot for a giant of up to 257 meters long and 34 meters wide, whose displacement is more than 40,500 tons.
On the inner decks of the ship, there are countless number of landing vehicles, all-terrain vehicles and trucks, cranes and the equipment they need parked. U.S. Marines and Navy soldiers, dressed in their work overalls, darted between them everywhere on the ship.
On the inner deck you can see soldiers jumping by themselves. When the ship’s actual gym is full of people. There, the trainees politely wait their turn, like in a food line stretching far along a narrow corridor.
On his first assignment abroad traveling airman Abigail Morris says that he learned to find his own hiding places in the mazes of the ship, where he can go to calm down from time to time: To stretch his limbs, read a book or just think about the world. It is essential because the USS Kearsarge sails the seas of the world for seven months at a time.
– We Americans are used to plenty of space, and here on the ship there is none. Many of us are young adults like me who have not been away from home for long periods before, so this takes some getting used to, says Morris.
American and Finnish soldiers may often meet on the Finnish coast in the future. Finland’s probable NATO membership would lead to more joint military exercises.
– This has been interesting. Especially in Russarö, we had time to get to know each other and communicate a lot between us, when we were on the same side in combat situations, corporal Axel Terävä The coastal brigade’s emergency unit says.