laststandonzombieisland

Operation Steel Box/Golden Python kicked off some 36 years ago this month, on 26 July 1990. It was about as joint as can be, and for good reason.

It had to move legacy stockpiles of 100,000 Sarin (GB) and VX (nerve agent) filled chemical munitions, specifically M121 155mm and M426 8-inch unitary chemical projectiles, from their igloos in West Germany, some 13,000 miles around the globe, to remote Johnston Atoll in the Pacific for destruction.

It was believed there was enough agent to easily kill millions of people if deployed, only limited by the density of the local population.

The thing is, the shells were increasingly unstable and occasionally leaked or broke, many having been filled in the 1950s and subjected to 25 years of winter freezes in Germany.

The Army leg of it (it was their gas after all) saw 15 bunkers at the classified Sonderwaffenlager Site 59 in Clausen emptied into 28 road convoys by the 330th Ordnance Company (EOD) with the 110th Military Police Company riding shotgun and shuttled to the nearby Miesau Army Depot. Air-tight and haz-mat rated Secondary Steel Containers (SSC) were used to overpack the standard shipping pallets.

The munitions were loaded onto a special ammunition train for the 400-mile rail journey from Miesau to the port of Nordenham, shadowed by 80 West German police and U.S. Army vehicles which closed off each crossing to avoid accidents.

Waiting at the North Sea-adjacent port were the MSC-operated 30,000-ton 1,230-TEU auxiliary crane (sister) ships SS Gopher State (T-ACS-4) and SS Flickertail State (T-ACS-5), standing by to receive their moody cargo.

The ships’ crews had been given weeks of extra training in chemical response and firefighting, and the vessels had been specially modified for the mission at a cost of $53 million.

From a 1991 GAO report:

To monitor the cargo, the ships were equipped with three different systems for testing the atmosphere for the presence of chemical agents. These systems used special ventilation equipment, various air sampling devices, and on-board laboratories for sample analysis. The ship holds and hatch covers were modified to be airtight. Empty containers were loaded along the sides of the cargo holds, thus providing a buffer zone to protect the cargo in the event of a collision and to prevent the cargo from shifting during rough seas. The ships were also outfitted with collective protection systems that provided a constant flow of clean filtered air to the crew accommodations and most working areas. This protected these areas from contamination in the event of an accidental release of chemical agents. Other safety modifications included decontamination stations and upgrades to the ships’ medical facilities and firefighting/damage control systems.

Once loaded, the sea trip would be non-stop to avoid any possible disasters in a seaport and would skip the constricted Panama Canal by routing around Cape Horn at the tip of South America.

To keep tabs on the cargo, the auxiliaries carried 12 armed and MOPP-gear-equipped Army Technical Escort personnel on each ship.

For insurance, the two grey-hulled auxiliaries would be escorted for their 46-day trip by the nuclear-powered (for obvious reasons) Cold War veteran cruisers USS Bainbridge (CGN-25) and USS Truxtun (CGN-35).

Single-class vessels built in the 1960s as 9,000-ton destroyer leaders then reclassed as cruisers, Bainbridge and Truxtun were more than capable of stopping any attempted hijacking on the high seas, carrying between them a 5″/45 Mk 42 gun, three twin Mk 10 launchers for a mix of 140 Standard SM-2 and ASROC missiles, 16 Harpoon AShMs, 10 ASW torpedo tubes, and four CIWS.

While not Aegis ships, they had long-range and advanced SPS-48 and SPS-52 3D radar sets as well as big SQS-26 sonar domes, so no rogue ship was going to get a drop on them. Their fire control systems allowed them to track and engage up to 16 targets simultaneously.

An eye in the sky was provided by Truxtun’s embarked SH-2F Sea Sprite, while Bainbridge had a helicopter deck but no hangar. Meanwhile, long-range land-based Navy and Air Force assets provided frequent overflights.

You can be sure that, in the event of some sort of runaway incident aboard one of the ships that couldn’t be contained, the crews would be evacuated and the Harpoons would fly, relying on the deep, dark waters to become the ultimate containment vessel.

It was slow going, averaging just over 11 knots, wallowing along monotonously in the same way that WWII convoys crept across oceans, moving at the speed of the slowest vessel.

Shoving off on 22 September, they arrived at Johnston Atoll on 6 November, without incident, despite experiencing several severe storms while “rounding the Cape.”

Replenishment food stores and boiler fuel oil for the auxiliaries were transferred underway.

Offloading took place over 12 days, with a commercial tug moving the Gophers around the small terminal while the recently commissioned 110-foot Island-class patrol boat, USCGC Kiska (WPB-1336), stood by the littoral to provide security.

She had steamed there independently from her station at Hilo, Hawaii, some 900 miles north, and had cleared the local waters a week before the task force’s arrival.

Steel Box concluded on 18 November, with no leaks or security breaches, and after the ships left, the “Red Hats” of the 267th Chemical Company– one of the only Chem Branch units with its own attached MP platoon (of the 58th Military Police Company)– slowly but safely disposed of the projectiles over the next decade.

By 2003, the facility itself had been demolished, and the 267th was deactivated the next year. The 58th is in garrison at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii.

Steel Box was among Bainbridge and Truxton’s final hurrahs before being decommissioned in 1995-1996 and recycled.

Kiska was decommissioned in Guam in October 2020, after 30 years of service, then transferred to Ukraine as Viacheslav Kubrak (P194), current status unknown.

Both Flickertail State and Gopher State outlived them all. Held in the MARAD’s Ready Reserve Force along with sister SS Cornhusker State (T-ACS-6) at Newport News, Gopher State is subject to recall on a five-day notice, despite both being over 50 years young. Meanwhile, Flickertail State is held in the National Defense Reserve Fleet (NDRF) at Alameda so that her spare parts can be stripped for her two sister ships.