Attack submarine crew receives first Navy Arctic Service Medals

Sailors on a fast attack submarine were the first Navy crew members to receive the Navy’s new Arctic Service Medal, which was created last year to recognize missions in which the ship sails over, under or on the surface of ice-covered Arctic waters.

The crew of the USS Indiana, a Virginia-class attack submarine, received the medal for their participation last March in Operation Ice Camp, a multinational event off the coast of Alaska that, atypically for large-scale military exercises, is exactly what it seems. For three freezing weeks, troops from all five U.S. services plus the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and France set up and controlled a 60-person camp, called Camp Whale, on a barren sheet of ice in the Beaufort Sea.

The camp takes its name from the USS Whale, a submarine that reached the North Pole in 1969 by diving beneath the Arctic ice cap and surfacing through the polar ice. The Indiana arrived at Camp Whale the same way, surfacing through the ice.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, who was at Camp Whale in March to meet the Indiana, presented the new medals to the crew and others Sept. 17 at Naval Base New London, Connecticut.

The Arctic Service Medal was authorized in 2023 as an expansion of the Arctic Service Ribbon, a distinction long awarded to sailors for 28 days of service above the Arctic Circle. The new medal, instead, is awarded for specific missions underway, including passage through an ice-covered strait (such as the Bering Strait or Barrow Strait), passage of the North Pole (which the Navy defines as latitudes above 82 degrees north), submarines surfacing vertically through ice, or conducting “covert military operations while beneath marginal ice or pack ice” for at least seven days.

Personnel assigned to an ice camp who pitch their tent on an ice field are also eligible.

Operation Ice Camp was the Navy’s 99th Arctic surface and undersea exercise, according to a Navy news release, and its largest. The Pentagon has made it clear in recent policy updates and troop base deployments that the Arctic region will likely be a focus of operations, amid increased interest in the region from China and Russia.

“Our Department of Defense Arctic Strategy makes it clear that we must be able to operate in the Arctic to protect our homeland and uphold our defense treaty commitments,” Franchetti told the Indiana crew. “Your actions demonstrate how the U.S. Navy is enhancing our Arctic capabilities by investing in sensors, intelligence and information, and sharing capabilities with our allies and partners so we can better understand the environment.”

Although the Russian and Chinese militaries pose the biggest threats behind Operation Ice Camp, there was no sign that the crew of the Indiana faced the same threat as any other Navy submarine during the famous 2003 exercise, then known as ICEX 2003.

During that exercise, the USS Connecticut similarly surfaced through a sheet of ice, then north of Alaska. But while the Indiana was greeted by the Navy’s top admiral last spring, the Connecticut was greeted only by a local polar bear looking for a snack.

The bear circled the ship for about 30 minutes, eventually jumping onto the boat’s tail, pushing the boat inward and even appearing to bite it, as the crew watched through the ship’s periscope camera.

The Navy confirmed at the time that neither the submarine nor the bear suffered any permanent damage.

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