| O P E R AT I O N S
Flying high through a land mission B Y
S ERG E A NT SHAR I AU LD
It’s no mean feat mobilising a headquarters task group to deploy at short notice. But early in December last year Headquarters Defence Joint Inter Agency Task Force (HQDJIATF) was tasked to quickly deploy in support of the Government of Solomon Islands after unrest in the country.
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small part of my job as the DJ’s headquarters’ movements operator is to help support the mobilisation phase of the deployment. In short this means preparing the team by way of advising baggage limits, aircraft restrictions, give advice on dangerous air cargo, and organise domestic and international movements, to name just a few. At 3am on December 2, the Initial Assessment Team was activated to deploy into theatre. It involved moving eight personnel, two military support vehicles, baggage, communications gear, weapons, ammunition, and seven days’ worth of food and water into the back of the vehicles and loaded into a C–130 Hercules at Base Ohakea. The next task was to arrange for the main body of personnel to deploy two days later from Ohakea to the Solomon Islands via a Boeing 757. I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to deploy with them, which also meant the workload for me was about to increase ten-fold.
About 50 personnel from the HQDJIATF, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Defence, the high readiness platoon group and NZ Police and their accompanying freight were on the flight to the Solomons. Arriving into theatre with an aircraft load of personnel and gear meant all hands available were required to support unloading. No more than an hour later the next aircraft arrived; a C–130 carrying two Pinzgauers full of communications equipment and ammunition. It’s safe to say the arrival of the main body was chaos, with personnel and gear everywhere. Once all the gear and personnel were settled into the accommodation, the daily battle rhythm could be established. For me this meant I went from being the movements operator for the headquarters element to the movements operator for the whole contingent. My responsibility now that we were in theatre was to provide advice and updates on the potential resupply flights and movement of personnel and freight into and out of the area of operations to the commander task group commander as well as to support the eventual return to New Zealand .
