USTRANSCOM team there when needed; evacuates 7,500 DOD workers and family members from Japan

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. - More than 7,500 Department of Defense personnel and family members, and 400 of their pets, were evacuated from disaster ravaged Japan in March as part of Operation Pacific Passage. 

The evacuation was made possible through the combined efforts of the U.S. Transportation Command and its components: Air Mobility Command, Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command and Military Sealift Command.

U.S. Marine Corps Col. Tom Bruno is the U.S. Pacific Command branch chief in the USTRANSCOM Fusion Center, where the evacuation efforts were coordinated.

“Right after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan we received word from theater (Pacific Command) that there had been a massive earthquake and follow on tsunami in theater,” Bruno said.  “I think we got the call at three-something in the morning recalling us to duty.

"We went into full gear, 24-hour operation, immediately in line with Pacific Command to support them,” Bruno continued.  “The State Department authorized a voluntary departure of Defense Department and Department of State personnel.  After that came the request for military assistance, and we got real busy.”

U.S. Army Maj. Sid Welch, an action officer in the PACOM branch explained how the whole plan came together.

“Part of the process is defining what the problem is,” Welch said.  “So we had a series of joint planning team sessions where we brought the entire Fusion Center team together.” 

The joint planning team consists of members from all areas of USTRANSCOM and the component commands.  Once everyone had an idea of the situation, they began developing plan of action.

“Once everyone is on the same sheet of music,” Bruno said, “they understand what the problem is.  Then everyone leaves and has a piece of that pie.  We did that every day for a good period of time when that first started."

Bruno explained that in addition to the humanitarian disaster relief, supplies and equipment  USTRANSCOM was moving into Japan, the team now had to come up with a way to get people out of the country with assets already in use.

“So that began a massive airlift phase where commercial and military assets were used to move American citizens, (including) our normal commercial partners that USTRANSCOM does business with every day,” Bruno said. “We sent our requirements to AMC.  They looked at our requirements to see how they could best fill that movement."

AMC then contacted the USTRANSCOM Acquisition Directorate to go out for contracts to move a certain number of passengers over a specific time frame.  AQ then began contracting discussions with carriers. 

“It’s almost simultaneous,” Bruno said.  “We go to AMC, they go to AQ.”

Sandy Halama is chief of the USTRANSCOM Acquisition Directorate Contract Airlift Division.  Doug Cook is a contracting officer in the Expansion Branch of the Contract Airlift Division. 

“We contract for the commercial airlines to support the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, CRAF,” Halama said.  “So that contract is let by our office for the entire 12 months of the year.  During times of surge or extra airlift, we buy missions throughout the year to move the passengers and troops on full plane load charters.

“In the expansion branch, where Doug works, the additional missions that are required throughout the year are purchased against those contracts by Doug and the other buyers,” Halama continued.   "So when this situation occurred and the J3 (Operations Directorate) and command needed additional airlift to support the evacuation, they turned to the CRAF contract for that surge capability.”

“The contract is established,” Cook added.  “It’s the same contract that moves our troops all over the world.  It’s there all the time.  That’s how we are able to contract so quickly, because we have that contract pre-established, and then we can contract individual flights that are not scheduled throughout the year.”

Even though the contract is already in place, challenges do arise when disasters strike.

“The challenge in this situation is normally we have two different kinds of carriers that play in our program,” Halama said, “We have the charter carriers that do the majority of our missions during the year, like World Airways, North American, Omni, those types of passenger charter carriers, and you also have the Deltas, United, Continental, American that normally don’t normally fly for us in peacetime because their entire fleet is busy flying their scheduled service business.

“So the challenge in this last minute huge surge is the fact that we already have our charter carriers flying other missions for us,” Halama continued.  “They only have a finite amount of planes, and so the challenge comes in getting those scheduled service carriers to augment the charter carriers and be able to do all of our business.

“And we’re still flying all our CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) missions, we’re still flying all our Patriot Express missions,” Halama added.  “But we’re also buying a large number of missions to support the evacuation. So the challenge that Doug had was getting United and American and Delta to step up a little bit more than normal.  Twenty-six (commercial) missions actually flew.”

The long hours put in by USTRANSCOM and component command personnel are appreciated by many, but they seldom hear from those their efforts affected.

“We heard from somebody who plays bingo with the grandmother of a child who came home,” Halama said.  “She’d been so worried about that child and she was so thankful to USTRANSCOM for getting her grandchild back to the United States.  So it is just really rewarding, what we do.”

“And we look forward to taking them all back,” Cook added.
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