Japan MSDF Shows Naval Mine Warfare Drills to Media

Mutsu, Aomori Pref., July 15 (Jiji Press)–Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force has shown to the media its naval mine warfare exercises being conducted in Mutsu Bay off the city of Mutsu in Aomori Prefecture, northeastern Japan. “We’re training to be ready to respond to any orders at any time,” Rear Adm. Izuru Ikeuchi, chief of the MSDF’s amphibious and naval mine warfare group, said Tuesday. The drills come at a time when the Japanese government is considering whether to send Self-Defense Forces personnel to the Strait of Hormuz as the Middle East situation remains unstable. The exercises started Saturday and will run until July 23. The U.S. and Indian navies are also slated to join the exercises, according to the MSDF. Naval mine exercises in Mutsu Bay have been conducted since 1964, and this year’s drills are the 45th of their kind. MSDF naval mine warfare exercises have also been held in the Hyuga Sea off the southwestern prefecture of Miyazaki and Ise Bay in central Japan as well as around Ioto, a remote Pacific island widely known as Iwo Jima. On Tuesday, the MSDF practiced an operation called helocasting, in which explosive ordnance disposal personnel were transported close to a training mine and detonated it, and a technique to remove a floating mine by cutting the wire connecting it to the seabed. According to the MSDF, a total of about 67,000 naval mines had been scattered around Japan after the end of World War II. Such mines continue to be discovered even now. The MSDF disposes of the mines by detonating them or through other means. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]