Reflections on Persian Gulf naval operations

摘要

During 2002 and 2003,1 served as Chief of Staff to Captain (now Rear Admiral) James Goldrick, RAN and Captain (now Rear Admiral) Peter Jones, RAN in their capacity as Commander Australian Surface Task Group deployed on Persian Gulf operations. The mission, tasks and outcomes of the maritime interception operations, naval blockade and littoral operations have been well described in a number of publications. This article seeks to describe the mechanics, workings and building of the RAN's role, not only within the framework of the US Navy's (USN) 5th Fleet, but also our progressive integration into Task Force (TF) 55 for operations against Iraq and our integration into the Australian Joint Task Force, which was initially forward based in Kuwait then Qatar.