Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier

these forces to the warfighting CinCs. While those ships and aircraft are assigned to numbered fleets and squadrons, we often have to package them in some rather unique ways, depending upon the situation and the requirements.

Tom Clancy: By that do you mean contingencies like Haiti back in 1994? I recall that you stripped two big-deck aircraft carriers of their air wings, and replaced them with a couple of aviation brigades with helicopters and troops from XVIII Airborne Corps.

Admiral Johnson: Well, since I was the Deputy Joint Task Force [JTF] Commander and naval component commander of that operation, let me give you my two cents' worth on how that all worked out. It was really interesting and, I might add, the right thing to do for that situation. I was the commander of the Second Fleet at the time, and was looking at new ways to use carriers. I took some abuse from some of my Naval aviation pals at the time, who said, 'Well, there you go, Johnson. You've sold naval aviation down the river. Next thing you know you'll be putting army helicopters on aircraft carriers.'The truth of the situation is that I was not threatened by that at all. If you look at what the Navy and our joint service partners were asked to do in Haiti, and you put it into the context of that particular place, at that time, against that threat, and that total scenario, what we did was damned near perfect. It really was. Almost as close to perfect as you can get. Now, the next time, in a different place and situation, doing something like that may be the dumbest idea in the world. For Haiti, though, converting the carriers was as 'right on' as anyone could have asked.

Tom Clancy: Once the need for the helicopters during Operation Restore Democracy was finished, how long did it take to get the regular air groups back on board and operating normally?

Admiral Johnson: Well, let me square you on this whole process. The Eisenhower [CVN-69] had the aviation brigade from the 10th Mountain Division, and the America [CV-66] had the folks from the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment at Fort Campbell. When we were ready to change back to normal, here's what happened. First the helicopters and their personnel cleared off to the Haitian mainland, and Eisenhower turned away. I was there, and watched this with my own eyes. The carrier battle groups left Port-au-Prince harbor, motored out past the island of Guni, and before they left the operations area, both had 'trapped' their Tomcats, their A-6 Intruders, and their E-2C Hawkeye support aircraft. By the time that they headed north, both carriers had fully reconstituted air groups, and made the transit home mission-ready. It was a great use of carriers, in my view.

Tom Clancy: So would you say that one of the real challenges of this post-Cold War transition has been trying to adapt the minds and thinking of people in the Navy to new ideas and concepts? Making people say 'Why not?' as opposed to 'Are you out of your mind?'

Admiral Johnson: Absolutely. It's hard to adjust to change. And we're all guilty of resisting it sometimes, as it turns out. I'm as bad as the rest of them, even though I like to think that I'm open- minded. I am open-minded, until you start messing with one of my ships….

Tom Clancy: Could it not be said that your willingness to be 'adaptive' with those two carriers may very well help to justify continued aircraft carrier development and procurement?

Admiral Johnson: It could indeed. I can tell you for a fact that the Navy gained a whole lot of new friends in the U.S. Army as a result of that exercise. Especially when their troops found out that they did not have to eat MREs [Meals, Ready to Eat] during the mission. In fact, here's an interesting piece of trivia from the commanding officers [COs] of those two carriers. It turned out that the soldiers from the two Army aviation units liked Navy chow so much, and ate so much of it, that we had to retool the resupply schedule. The soldiers were just shoveling down all this food on board the ships. Navy chow is good!

Tom Clancy: Taking the Haiti example a bit further, it is fairly clear that since the end of the Cold War, the Navy has been used for a wide variety of roles and missions-everything from blockades and strike warfare [Persian Gulf] to rescues and humanitarian relief [Balkans and Somalia]. Given that you already do such a wide variety of things so well, what else do you want the Navy to be capable of doing in the 21st century?

Admiral Johnson: You're right, the Navy's pretty flexible! In the future, I think that you're going to see us doing some new things with the Marine Corps. We're finding new ways to organize and structure our forces to accommodate new roles and missions. One specific area that I know we'll be developing is Theater Ballistic-Missile Defense [TBMD], using our Aegis cruisers and destroyers. That's new and exciting stuff that ten years from now will be everyday business, though today it's all leading-edge technology.

Tom Clancy: Especially in the absence of a 'blue water' threat, has the Navy gotten down to developing a real doctrine to go with the move to littoral warfare?

Admiral Johnson: The answer is yes, but I qualify that answer by saying that we're just at the leading edge of getting it done. At the Naval Warfare Doctrine Command, they're looking at how we can take the earlier 'blue-water' doctrine of the Cold War, and embed it in a very solid way into this new reality of littoral warfare. We're trying hard to build new linkages with our various Naval academic institutions like the War College [in Newport, Rhode Island], the Postgraduate School [in Monterey, California], and even the Naval Academy [in Annapolis, Maryland], as well as in the tactical and operational sides of the fleet.

Tom Clancy: Once upon a time, not so long ago, the Navy was seen as not being a good partner in the joint warfare arena. Can you tell us, from the Navy point of view, how you view your corporation and participation in joint warfare these days?

Admiral Johnson: Frankly, I don't see any friction today. I think that's old news. As far as I'm concerned, the Navy is on the leading edge in the joint warfare business these days. In fact, we're committed to it at all levels. Here's a case in point. When we do our carrier battle group [CVBG] and amphibious ready group [ARG] workups, that's all joint. What we used to call a FLEETEX [Fleet Exercise] in the old days is now the JTFEX [Joint Task Force Exercise]. Of course, we still work within our fundamental core sea service [Navy and Marine Corps] competencies during training. But once we get into the JTFEX, it's units like the 2nd Fleet CVBG, the II MEF [Marine Expeditionary Force] MEU [SOC], the XVIII Airborne Corps, the 8th Air Force, and our allies all together. So we are absolutely committed to the joint warfare arena, right down to training within the Joint Training Matrix. This is not the way it was during Desert Storm where the Navy was still 'fighting the feeling.'That does not mean that we have solved all of our challenges. Full utilization of CTAPS [the joint theater air planning tool] and distribution of the ATO [Air Tasking Order] is still giving us problems, but by and large, we're on board in the joint arena. I might add that we're proud to be part of it, because that's the way that we're going to be fighting in the future as a nation.

Tom Clancy: One of the most interesting joint training exercises that has been run recently is Operation Tandem Thrust, down in Australia. Can you tell us about it?

Admiral Johnson: You have to remember that we have a 'special' relationship with Australia, one that has been critical to both countries in this century. Tandem Thrust is just another classic example of that relationship. We just came back from Operation Tandem Thrust. It was huge, involving over 22,000 U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force personnel. We accomplished our objectives and