How a Military Base in Illinois Helps Keep Weapons Flowing to Ukraine

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ailing. — In a room dimly lit by tv screens, dozens of airmen tapped away at computer systems and labored the telephones. Some have been maintaining watch over a high-priority mission to maneuver a Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter from a base in Arizona to a vacation spot close to Ukraine’s border.

Earlier that day, a civilian colleague had checked a spreadsheet and located a C-17 transport aircraft in Washington state that was out there to choose up the helicopter and start a daylong journey.

It was as much as the airmen to present the aircraft’s crew its orders, ensure that the aircraft took off and landed on time and deal with any issues alongside the best way.

The C-17 would fly from McChord Air Drive Base close to Tacoma to Davis-Monthan Air Drive Base exterior Tucson, the place the helicopter was parked in a repository for retired navy airplanes often called “the boneyard.”

“So it’s two and a half hours from McChord to Davis-Monthan,” mentioned Col. Bob Buente, reviewing the primary leg of the journey. “Then 4 hours to load, then they’ll take off about 7:30 tonight. Then 5 hours to Bangor, then we’ll put them to mattress due to the dimensions of the following leg.”

From Bangor, Maine, the cargo flight — name signal: Attain 140 — would go away for Europe, the colonel mentioned.

Because the struggle in Ukraine started 4 months in the past, the Biden administration has contributed billions of {dollars} in navy help to the Ukrainian authorities, together with American-made machine weapons, howitzers and artillery rocket launchers, in addition to Russian-designed weaponry that the nation’s navy nonetheless makes use of, just like the Mi-17 helicopter.

The Pentagon has drawn lots of the objects from its personal stock. However how they attain Ukraine typically includes behind-the-scenes coordination by groups at a navy base in Illinois, about 25 miles east of St. Louis.

There at Scott Air Drive Base, the place a half-dozen retired transport planes are on show simply exterior the principle gate, a number of thousand logisticians from every department of the armed forces work at america Transportation Command — or Transcom. In navy parlance, it’s a “combatant command,” equal to better-known models which are accountable for elements of the globe — like Central Command and Indo-Pacific Command — and takes its orders immediately from the secretary of protection.

Transcom has labored out the circulate of each cargo of navy help from america to Ukraine, which started in August and kicked into excessive gear after the Russian invasion.

The method begins when the federal government in Kyiv sends a request to a name heart on an American base in Stuttgart, Germany, the place a coalition of greater than 40 nations coordinates the help. A few of the orders are stuffed by a U.S. companion or ally, and the remainder are dealt with by america — routed by means of U.S. European Command, which can be in Stuttgart, to Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees, who focus on them in weekly conferences with the service chiefs and combatant commanders.

If the specified objects can be found, and the combatant commanders determine that giving them to Ukraine is not going to unduly hurt their very own struggle plans, Basic Milley makes a advice to Mr. Austin, who in flip makes a advice to President Biden. If the president indicators off, Transcom figures out the best way to transfer the help to an airfield or port close to Ukraine.

The order to maneuver the Russian helicopter zipped throughout the bottom in Illinois from Transcom’s headquarters to a one-story brick constructing housing the 618th Air Operations Middle, the place red-lit clocks provided the native time at main navy aviation bases in California, Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, Qatar and Germany.

Colonel Buente runs the day-to-day operations on the 618th Air Operations Middle, the place about 850 active-duty airmen, reservists and civilians spend their days planning missions just like the helicopter’s journey, he mentioned. Ensuring these plans are carried out falls to a smaller group — working in shifts of 60 individuals, 24 hours a day, every single day of the 12 months — that follows the stream of missions posted on a continuously up to date display centered on the again wall all the best way to completion.

It’s the similar heart that orchestrated the mass evacuation of Individuals and Afghans from Afghanistan’s capital in August. On the busiest day then, 21,000 passengers have been flown out of the Kabul airport, with planes taking off or touchdown each 90 minutes, officers mentioned.

That was a busy time for Transcom, which on a mean day not solely plans and coordinates about 450 cargo flights but additionally oversees about 20 cargo ships, together with a community of transcontinental railroads and greater than a thousand vehicles — all of which routinely carry struggle matériel.

The flights additionally transport humanitarian help and different provides when wanted, together with shipments of child system in Might to alleviate a scarcity in america.

Commanding all of it’s Gen. Jacqueline D. Van Ovost of the Air Drive, who’s simply the second feminine officer to guide one of many Pentagon’s 11 combatant instructions.

For the help shipments to Ukraine, the planning begins lengthy earlier than the White Home publicizes a brand new help package deal, she mentioned.

“We can not wait till the president indicators or the secretary offers an order earlier than we do the mandatory planning,” Basic Van Ovost mentioned in an interview in her workplace, the place a photograph of Amelia Earhart held on the wall. “We’re watching it evolve,” the overall mentioned of the discussions about help, “and we create plans which are sitting on the prepared.”

Mr. Biden licensed the primary U.S. navy gear and weapons for Ukraine — a $60 million package deal — on Aug. 27. On the time, it took a few month to get the objects onto a aircraft after they have been accepted, in keeping with Basic Van Ovost, a check pilot who flew cargo planes.

The White Home has introduced 13 subsequent help packages for Ukraine, and the planning course of has superior sufficient that it now takes lower than a day from the president approving a cargo to having the primary objects loaded onto a aircraft, she mentioned. Three of the packages within the struggle’s first 29 days totaled $1.35 billion. As of Friday, america has dedicated $6.9 billion in navy help to Kyiv since Russia invaded.

Transcom’s operations heart decides whether or not to ship help through cargo aircraft or by ship based mostly on how shortly European Command wants it to reach. Although navy cargo planes like C-17s provide the quickest supply choice, they incur the very best prices. About half of Transcom’s airfreight is dealt with by a fleet of contracted, commercially owned plane, together with 747s, every of which may carry double the load a C-17 can.

Every time doable, although, navy planners ship items on cargo ships, a inexpensive choice.

“We’ve activated two vessels and used a number of liner service vessels to ship cargo sure for Ukraine,” mentioned Scott Ross, a spokesman for the command. The vessels and greater than 220 flights had delivered simply over 19,000 tons of navy help to Ukraine since August, he mentioned.

On one of many massive screens in Colonel Buente’s operations heart, a few dozen missions have been listed so as of significance. On the prime have been two “1A1” missions supporting a number of the command’s most essential clients: the president, vp, the secretaries of state and protection in addition to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees.

Instantly beneath these missions was Attain 140, the C-17 flying to Davis-Monthan Air Drive Base in Arizona. 1000’s of plane have baked there within the solar, together with 13 Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters that america had purchased for Afghanistan earlier than Kabul fell to the Taliban.

In latest months, 12 of the helicopters have been shipped to nations close to Ukraine, returned to flying situation and handed over to Ukrainian pilots for the struggle with Russia.

Because the airmen tracked the C-17, a handful of troopers and civilians in a small Military-run part of Transcom monitored a separate mission: 4 cargo trains shifting throughout america in addition to a number of cargo ships, a few of which have been owned by the Navy.

One of many Navy vessels was heading from Norfolk, Va., to a navy port in North Carolina, the place it could be loaded with ammunition for M142 HIMARS rocket launchers lengthy desired by the Ukrainian navy. The rockets, packed in bundles of six and loaded into 20-foot delivery containers, have been additionally en path to the port. Cranes would quickly elevate the steel containers off tractor-trailers and rail automobiles, stack them aboard the ship and lock them into place for a journey at sea lasting about two weeks.

A lot of the Pentagon’s navy help despatched to Ukraine on ships goes to 2 German ports — one on the North Sea and the opposite on the Baltic.

To maintain potential adversaries from closing off routes for Ukraine navy help, Military planners can arrange operations at any one in every of dozens of ports on the 2 seas. Russian warships have largely shut down essentially the most direct routes for resupply missions — Ukrainian ports within the Black Sea.

On the 618th, the place presidents and secretaries of protection can reassign planes in a heartbeat for emergencies world wide, a display that often shows a categorised map of worldwide threats to navy air and sea shipments was blacked out for safety causes whereas a reporter was within the room.

And three of the televisions have been set to cable information as a result of, as Colonel Buente defined, “we often find yourself reacting to breaking information.”