Anti-Piracy Task Force
The Boxer is designated as the flagship of Combined Task Force 151, the international anti-piracy task force pursuing pirates off the coast of Somalia.
On 10 April 2009, the USS Boxer was en route to assist USS Bainbridge and the USS Halyburton in negotiating the release of Richard Phillips, captain of U.S. flagged container ship MV Maersk Alabama who was held hostage by Somali pirates 300 miles off the Horn of Africa. On 12 April 2009 Captain Phillips was freed during a US Navy assault. Three of the Somali pirates were killed, and one was captured. Captain Phillips was transported to the USS Boxer for medical examination and rest. Around 1 May 2009, the USS Boxer assisted around 200 members of the German special operations unit GSG-9 get close to the hijacked German container ship MV Hansa Stavanger. During the last phase of the operation President Barack Obama's security advisor James Jones withheld final approval for the operation out of concern for the safety of the 25 sailors aboard the vessel. This led to the decision by the German department of defense and the German department of the interior to abort the planned attack on the freighter for now and the GSG-9 unit, which is under the command of the German secretary of the interior, returned to their base of operations at the airport of Mombassa, Kenya. It is rumored that the German department of defense influence and contacts to James Jones led to the U.S. decision to withdraw from the scene.
The ship returned to San Diego on 1 August 2009. During its transit of the Pacific, 69 of the sailors and Marines aboard the ship contracted swine influenza, forcing the cancellation of a planned "Tiger Cruise" from Hawaii to meet the ships for several hundred relatives and friends.
The ship, with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, departed San Diego 22 February 2011 for a seven-month deployment in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Accompanying the ship on the deployment were the USS Green Bay (LPD-20) and USS Comstock (LSD-45).
Read more about this topic: USS Boxer (LHD-4)
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