Tag: ROK Navy

It is great to see the growing trilateral cooperation between the ROK, U.S., and Japan:

South Korea, the United States and Japan kicked off a trilateral naval exercise, involving an American aircraft carrier, in waters south of the Korean Peninsula on Monday, Seoul’s defense ministry said, amid joint efforts to reinforce deterrence against growing North Korean threats.

The two-day anti-submarine and search-and-rescue exercise, featuring the USS Nimitz carrier, got under way in the international waters south of the southern island of Jeju.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This ROK Naval taskforce is getting some good training all across the Pacific to include at Hawaii:

The Republic of Korea navy’s cruise training task group arrived Friday at Pearl Harbor for five days of classes and cultural events for sailors and the South Korean navy’s future leaders.

Among the 460 members of the training group are 164 midshipmen from the Republic of Korea naval academy sailing aboard the ROKS Hansando, a newly built training ship.

Joined by the combat support ship ROKS Daecheong, this is the first training cruise for the Hansando after commissioning last year.

Before arriving in Hawaii the training group made stops in Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji. The group’s final port of call in its 110-day voyage will be in Guam before returning home to South Korea.

“It’s a meaningful opportunity where our midshipmen can experience and have an opportunity to learn the Indo-Pacific strategy that the Korean government has put out recently,” said Rear Adm. Kang Dong-goo, commander of the cruise training group.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Just another sign of warming relations between South Korea and Japan:

A South Korean naval vessel took part in Japan’s international fleet review on Sunday for the first time in seven years amid escalating nuclear and missile threats from North Korea.

South Korea was one of 12 countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, to take part in the review that took place in Sagami Bay off Kanagawa Prefecture, about 40 kilometers southeast of Tokyo.

Sailors aboard South Korea’s 10,000-ton logistics support ship Soyang saluted toward Japan’s helicopter carrier Izumo carrying Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, as sailors from other participating countries do while passing the carrier.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is good to see this trilateral cooperation restarting again after it was stopped when former President Moon Jae-in was elected:

 South Korea, the United States and Japan will kick off a combined ballistic missile defense exercise in waters off Hawaii this week, informed sources said Sunday, amid their stepped-up security coordination against North Korea’s evolving military threats.

The biennial Pacific Dragon exercise is scheduled to take place from Monday through Aug. 14, according to them. In addition to the three countries, Australia and Canada will join the exercise in this year’s edition. 

Featuring the mobilization of eight warships and two aircraft, the exercise is aimed at enhancing cooperation among the participating countries in detecting, tracking and reporting ballistic missile targets. 

The exercise has been arranged as the defense chiefs of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan agreed to reinforce their security coordination during their trilateral gathering on the margins of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 11.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the ROK military has another high profile sexual harassment case:

An allegation was raised against a Navy field officer who asked a female soldier, “Are you out of your mind?” and tried to silence her when she tried to report sexual harassment. The Ministry of National Defense launched an investigation following the belated allegation. The victim, who was sent to another workplace shortly after her report, later suffered secondary victimization from other senior officers and eventually chose to leave the Navy.

According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun coverage on January 27, A, a female soldier of a lower Navy unit was sexually harassed by Sergeant B, her supervisor, several times from July 2017 to January 2018. Sergeant B rolled up his short pants and showed his underwear to A in the office where the two were alone. When A spent the night off base, B even told her to report where, with whom, and how she spent the night. A argued that B also instigated bullying within the unit and tormented her in addition to the sexual harassment.

In March 2018, A sought the counsel of the chief master sergeant on this issue, but had to suffer disadvantages. The officers in charge of the unit transferred A from her previous workplace, the executive office, to a small lounge next to a food waste collection area. The lounge was not equipped with any office equipment, such as a telephone and a printer, and it had no heating or air conditioning. Meanwhile, her assailant B continued to work in his office, subject to no personnel measures.

On May 8 that same year, A made an official report and asked Lieutenant Colonel C (battalion commander) who was the commanding officer of the unit at the time, to report her case to the upper unit and punish Sergeant B. 

Kyunghyang Shinmun

You can read the rest at the link, but the battalion commander proceeded to try and prevent the victim from reporting. Ultimately she was able to report and her harasser was removed from the military. However, now the battalion commander and the operations officer are being investigated for trying to prevent her reporting.