The Italian aircraft carrier ITS Cavour sails alongside the USS Abraham Lincoln somewhere in the Pacific Ocean on August 9, 2024. (Valerie Morrison/US Navy)
Two Italian warships arrived at Apra Harbor on Guam on Sunday, marking the Italian Navy’s first visit to the island, just days after its first-ever exercise with the U.S. Navy in the region.
Italy’s strike group, consisting of the aircraft carrier ITS Cavour and the frigate ITS Alpino, stopped in U.S. territory on its way from Darwin, Australia, to Japan later this month, Cavour spokesman Lt. Commander Rosario Naimo said by email on Monday.
The ships and their crews – about 1,200 sailors – are at the Guam naval base, he wrote.
“On this beautiful island, the crew members of both ships will have the opportunity to rest and take part in local tours to prepare for the next voyage to Japan,” said Naimo, adding that there are no restrictions on the seafarers.
The Italian ships arrived two days after exercises with the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group in the Pacific Ocean, which the U.S. Navy described as a “multi-large deck event,” according to a press release from the Abraham Lincoln on Saturday.
The two attack groups, which together consisted of more than 7,500 sailors and Marines, practiced joint communications, air warfare and cross-deck flight operations.
“This was a great opportunity to work with our close NATO ally Italy in the Indo-Pacific,” Rear Admiral Adan Cruz, commander of Carrier Strike Group 3, said in the press release. “Our efforts are critical to ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific region.”
U.S. and Italian Navy aircraft fly in formation over the Pacific, August 9, 2024. C (Valerie Morrison/US Navy)
The Indo-Pacific region remains a high priority for the United States and its allies. Their main concerns are Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and North Korea’s missile launches.
The exercise was a first for the Italian and U.S. navies in the Indo-Pacific, but both often train elsewhere in the world. The Cavour recently joined forces with the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower for an exercise in the Red Sea, Naimo said.
The Abraham Lincoln battle group, which ended its four-day stay on Guam and nearby Saipan on Thursday, is en route to the Middle East to relieve the USS Theodore Roosevelt battle group.
Over the past year, US aircraft carriers have been regularly deployed in the Red Sea, protecting merchant ships and allied warships from almost daily drone and missile attacks by Houthi militias, which are targeting Israel in retaliation for the war between Israel and Hamas.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday that he had ordered the Abraham Lincoln Strike Group to “accelerate its transit” to the Middle East, according to a Defense Department statement the same day. It said Austin had also sent the ballistic missile submarine USS Ohio to the region.
Austin ordered the battle group and other guided missile ships to the U.S. European Command and U.S. Central Command areas of operations on August 2 and promised to “increase our readiness to deploy land-based ballistic missile defense,” the Defense Department said in a press release the same day.
