A Navy Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25, Detachment 1 aircrew takes a break from humanitarian missions in Indonesia earlier this year. Pictured are Petty Officer 1st Class William Radcliffe, left, Lt. Renee Scherr, Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam Kaluza and Lt. Cmdr. Greg St. Pierre. (William Radcliffe / U.S. Navy)
It was a deployment like no other.
A day after tsunamis devastated South Asia on Dec. 26, the Navy’s Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25 (HSC 25), Detachment 1, was ordered to Sumatra, near the epicenter of destruction.
Though five of the squadron’s six detachments ultimately assisted with tsunami relief efforts in Indonesia, Detachment 1, with 28 sailors and two MH-60S Knight Hawk helicopters, maintained the longest presence in the region — from January to March — of all U.S. Navy assets, according to Navy officials.
But the Sumatra mission was only one phase of a marathon deployment that kept the sailors at sea and away from their families on Guam for nearly 10 months, from July 2004 to May 2005.
“We weren’t expecting to be out that long,” said Lt. Cmdr. Greg St. Pierre, Detachment 1 officer-in-charge. “Our slogan is, ‘Semper Gumby.’” Always Flexible.
Throughout the deployment, the sailors flew 1,000 hours and transported 3,188 tons of cargo, 4,561 passengers and completed 277 medical evacuations.
On May 7, they returned to Andersen Air Force Base and Friday, about 50 people gathered at the squadron for a homecoming ceremony, where Cmdr. Shoshana Chatfield, HSC-25 commander, thanked the sailors, and seven detachment members received the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, St. Pierre said.
“We did 225 days at sea in a little under 10 months,” he said. “We served our time. We’re going to … spend some time at home with our families while the other detachments take (the) load.”
Though long stints away from home come with the job — detachments typically spend about six months at sea on deployment — the Indonesian leg of the mission was far from routine. Working dusk to dawn seven days a week, helicopter crews delivered food, medical supplies, building materials and even soccer balls to remote villages cut off by the tsunami, the sailors said.
“Complete towns were just washed away,” said Lt. Renee Scherr, Detachment 1 assistant-officer-in-charge. “Often we were given the mission to drop off 5,000 pounds of rice or water in certain locations. When we would get there, there wasn’t any land left.”
They landed wherever they could safely touch down — in grass, dirt and soccer fields.
“Most of the pilots and the aircrew had not encountered this type of environment before,” Scherr said.
The work was backbreaking: A typical day involved four or five runs of 5,000 pounds of cargo each. At the end of the day, the birds underwent four hours of maintenance.
The detachment bunked down on the USNS San Jose every night, initially working with the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Essex and later the USNS Mercy, ferrying supplies, medical staff and patients.
The San Jose cooks, the sailors said, went out of their way to keep the kitchen open at odd hours for the helicopter crews, even giving them box lunches for breakfast.
The rewards for the hard work were the smiles and handshakes from the villagers.
“They loved us,” said Petty Officer 1st Class William Radcliffe, Detachment 1 leading petty officer. “They would help us offload. They all loved getting their picture taken.”
The mission intensity never waned. Working with USNS Mercy off the coast of Banda Aceh, the HSC 25 copters transported doctors inland and critically ill patients to the ship. The city’s main hospital lost about two-thirds of its hospital staff in the tsunami, Scherr said.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Andrew Cruz, Detachment 1 mechanic, said the time away was hard on his family but he was able to call his wife nearly every day.
“I’m there to do a job; we’re on a mission,” he said. “It’s worth all of it.”
St Pierrre added: “We were able to do some incredible work and no doubt saved thousands and thousands of lives and affected thousands more and made their suffering less. You only get to do something like this once in a lifetime. We’re really happy we were able to do it.”
A Navy Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25, Detachment 1 aircrew takes a break from humanitarian missions in Indonesia earlier this year. Pictured are Petty Officer 1st Class William Radcliffe, left, Lt. Renee Scherr, Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam Kaluza and Lt. Cmdr. Greg St. Pierre. (William Radcliffe / U.S. Navy)
Locals help a team from Navy Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 25, Detachment 1, unload food and supplies earlier this year in Indonesia. (William Radcliffe / U.S. Navy)
A birds-eye view of Nias, Indonesia, after the 8.7-magnitude earthquake on March 28. (William Radcliffe / U.S. Navy)
