U.S. 2nd Fleet Commands Naval Forces from Camp Lejeune

Courtesy Photo | U.S. 2nd Fleet exercises operational authorities over assigned ships, aircraft and landing forces on the East Coast and the North Atlantic.  

JACKSONVILLE, NC, UNITED STATES

02.26.2020

Courtesy Story

Commander, U.S. 2nd Fleet   

JACKSONVILLE, North Carolina (NNS) -- U.S. 2nd Fleet (C2F) has established an expeditionary Maritime Operations Center (MOC) at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

This expeditionary MOC, made up of approximately 30 members of C2F staff, has the ability to command and control forces, provide basic indicators and warnings for situational awareness, and be able to issue orders with a reach-back capability to C2F’s headquarters in Norfolk, Va.

Participating naval forces include the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group (CSG), which is comprised of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), the guided missile cruisers, USS San Jacinto (CG 56), USS Vella Gulf (CG 72), and the guided-missile destroyers USS Stout (DDG 55), USS James E. Williams (DDG 95), USS Truxton (DDG 103), and more than 6,000 Sailors all stationed a Naval Station Norfolk.

“Camp Lejeune is the ideal location for Navy-Marine Corps integration opportunities,” said Vice Adm. Andrew Lewis, commander U.S. Second Fleet. “For the purpose of this expeditionary MOC, our USMC counterparts are providing C2F with the supplies and equipment essential to the successful execution of this exercise.”

In CNO’s Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority 2.0, C2F was tasked to be expeditionary— whether from a maritime platform or an austere location. Regularly operating C2F’s expeditionary capability ensures our ability to respond expeditiously and proficiently when called upon.

Maintaining and expanding upon the ability to command and control forces away from headquarters is central to C2F‘s employment of forces in the Atlantic. During this iteration of the expeditionary MOC, II Marine Expeditionary Force assisted with infrastructure development. Both C2F and II MEF will draw lessons learned from this operation to inform future employment of an integrated command and control center in the future.

“We are implementing lessons learned from previous expeditionary MOC operations which will directly influence the way we employ naval forces at the operational level going forward,” said Capt. Craig Bangor, Second Fleet MOC director. “To accomplish our assigned mission this time, we have included intelligence, logistic, cyber, information, and maritime operations and planning capability organic to the expeditionary MOC. While the team in Norfolk is leading and planning for a wide array of operations, our team in Camp Lejeune is solely focusing on the employment of the Eisenhower Strike Group as it crosses the Atlantic utilizing the expeditionary MOC capabilities.”

The expeditionary MOC concept is scalable and temporary in nature, and the iteration in Lejeune marks the third for C2F sing it’s establishment in August, 2018. C2F first demonstrated this expeditionary capability through command and control of Exercise Baltic Operations (BALTOPS) in June 2019 when the majority of staff embarked aboard USS Mount Whitney. Most recently, C2F employed a forward deployed expeditionary MOC in Keflavik Air Base, Iceland.

C2F exercises operational authorities over assigned ships, aircraft, and landing forces on the East Coast and the Atlantic.

For more information, contact C2F public affairs at [e-mail].

For more news from U.S. 2nd Fleet, visit https://www.c2f.navy.mil/ and for more information visit http://www.facebook.com/US2ndFleet/ or http://twitter.com/US2ndFleet

• Date Taken: 02.26.2020
• Date Posted: 02.27.2020 18:46
• Story ID: 364051
• Location: JACKSONVILLE, NC, US