US Coast Guard HITRON Squadron

In the background to my real job I have been working long-term on an increasingly poorly timed and under-funded package of live sketches for the 60th anniversary of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). This was the brainchild of Canuck Major Andrew Hennessy, an excellent public affairs officer I met in Ukraine in 2015, while working there with the Canadian Forces Art Program. Maj. Hennessey made the jump to NORAD in the intervening years and came up with the idea. The project is ‘poorly timed’ because we missed the anniversary last year, and ‘under-funded,’ because we have a budget of precisely zero.

So, what does all that have to do with the US Coast Guard? Well, as part of North America’s multi-layered air defense mission the Coast Guard works directly under the direction of NORAD in some instances. And in order to get myself access to some of the gritty NORAD segments, like helicopter protection of the airspace over the U.S. Capital region, I had to get cozy with the USCG. To do that, because of ‘security concerns’ over some random Scottish spy showing up at various locations I was took the opportunity to gain some legitimacy by joining the Coast Guard Art Program (COGAP).

https://www.uscg.mil/Community/Art-Program/

The drawing thing with the USCG Capital Region helicopter interdiction folks worked out very well earlier in the year. (https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/norad-60th-united-states-2-richard-johnson/) And because I didn’t want to seem like I was using the lovely USCG folks just to get ahead, I thought I really should attempt to cover some other part of their work before the end of the calendar year. The first opportunity to clear my guilty conscience was an invite from the USCG Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) down in Jacksonville, Florida. A mere 12-hour drive from DC. Road trip!

HITRON is a unique Coast Guard operation. It involves an armed helicopter squadron specializing in airborne use of force for drug-interdiction missions. For decades drug boats from have plied their way into the US across the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere. And up until the late 1990s these were interdicted by USCG guard cutters and boat teams. During the 1990s however the drug smugglers started to use racing-hulled boats fitted with multiple high-speed outboards to get their cargo to shore. These “go-fast” boats were almost twice as fast as the pursuing USCG cutters could manage. In the late 1990s, realizing they were stopping less than 10 percent of the illegal drugs entering the US by sea, the USCG adjusted tactics to counter the “go-fast” threat with HITRON.

Since inception HITRON has met with great success. The helicopters and their teams work offshore from a Coast Guard cutter, which also launches supporting interdiction boats to intercept. Suspect boats are initially spotted from USCG C-130 Hercules high overhead, and the HITRON team is then vectored to intercept. In many cases, the mere presence of an armed Coast Guard helicopter is enough to convince smugglers to stop their boats. If the smugglers are disinclined to acquiesce however, then a Precision Marksman (Airman) (PMA) will use the M240 machine gun to lay a burst of fire across the bow of the fleeing boat to reinforce the point. If that too fails to bring about the go-slow in the go-fast then the PMA will target the craft’s outboard motors using a high-powered rifle. All while traveling at speed. Once convinced or compelled to stop the go-fast is boarded and searched by the surface boat team from the cutter, and the smugglers are taken into custody and the contraband seized.

I arrived at the main hangar in Jacksonville early to meet up with public affairs and get my clearance sorted at the security gate. We did the rounds of all of the various departments so that nobody was surprised by my wanderings. It was the usual start of “you do what now?” questions. Every trip like this starts with barely checked skepticism. The trick is to leave them all converts at the end. After the round of handshaking and raised eyebrows I was left to my own devices to see things come and go.

For the last ten years or so HITRON has flown the MH-65C Dolphin. About a half dozen of them were scattered around the hangar floor in various stages of undress. Maintenance technicians in ones and twos and fours where working them over. Some of it was regular maintenance, and some of it seemed more major involving removal of almost every part of the bird. Lots of fun drawing here, especially if I can find personnel who look like they might be doing something for a while. I wandered from place to place wasting some paper, but also getting decently lucky with a few sketches.

I started this one (above) of AMT3 Umphrey and AMT2 Strock working on the landing gear while the two were at lunch. I drew the bird guessing where they would both be sitting when they returned, based on where they had left their tools. It was a close thing but I just about got them in there. My mandate from the COGAP admissions criteria was to get USMC personnel doing their jobs, so there was no short of material here. I also have a love of the birds themselves so I also worked on a couple of larger pieces concentrating on getting the machines correct and dynamic, while just hoping that someone would get into frame doing something for me to add them in. The trick on the larger pieces is to choose a helicopter that looked like it wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

The military personnel I get to draw are always very interested in the work as it progresses no matter the branch. They become even more interested when they realize that they themselves might be included. At first they don’t really know what to make of it, but as the drawing stretches across the paper the enthusiasm grows. I get the sketch-bomb joke pretty regularly. The one where they say, “if I stand here will you draw me in?”

Often times people will notice me drawing and apologize, after stepping between me and my subject. Like they might have ruined my sketch. I collect names and ranks as I go along, even if I might only have a very gestural reference to someone who was only working for a few minutes. I want to get the names right.

All around the hangars and offices are the fiberglass skins of Yamaha and Suzuki outboard motors. Upon closer inspection each one has a single, or sometimes two neat holes plugged through. These are the proudly displayed trophies of successful HITRON drug boat interdictions. It is indeed quite impressive. Some have two holes inches apart. These impress me the most. But most impressive is the support network it takes to have that bullet arrive at its destination. It takes teamwork of the entire HITRON squadron to put that bullet in the engine block.

As the USCG folks got used to me being around I got to that happy position of being ignored for the most part. I managed to insert myself into various scenarios and capture a little of the day to day. A pre-flight meeting, weapons cleaning, or the hard-used flight-gear hanging in racks outside the armory. It all makes great art. All of these scenes are iconic to my eye, but in the day to day workings of the squadron, nothing special.

On my second or third day a big MH-60 Jayhawk from USCG Clearwater Air Station dropped in on an overnight layover. It looked brand new and once they pulled it inside the hangar I had to try it. There was wonderful light reflecting on her shiny panels from outside the fragmented windows. Too hard to resist. Nothing to do with HITRON, but I sat down my folding stool and got to work. “Don’t draw that,’ one of the HITRON technicians said on a walk by behind me, “draw one of ours.”

Before I managed to talk my way onto the Jacksonville USCG Air Station, I had made a promise that ‘if’ I was indeed granted access, I would create a piece of the HITRON sniper in position. Staging a scene is not something I would ever usually do, but I also needed to close the sale to make the trip happen. So on my final afternoon I found a PMA volunteer to come and pose for the sketch at the very top of the page. I was happy to do it, but felt a bit awkward about dragging someone away from their actual job to act as a manakin.

PMA-1 Petty Officer 1st Class James (Jimmy) T. Nelson is heading for retirement. Jimmy joined the service in 2000. He was kind enough to volunteer to put on all the gear and model in a bird we had positioned on the flight line. He was a great sport about it all, and made the whole awkward artistic process very easy. He was also a fantastic source of intimate details of how interdiction missions from the Coast Guard cutter generally unfold. And how the whole massive HITRON mechanism and teamwork comes together to get a result.

“On approach (in the helicopter) I’ll be watching video of the boat and sitting down,” he said as he showed me his position behind the pilot and co-pilot, and his flip up monitor. “We don’t see many weapons other than handguns, or maybe an AK-47,” he said. In many cases, the mere presence of an armed Coast Guard helicopter is enough to convince smugglers to stop their boats. “As we get close, I’ll stand up and if they don’t stop, I’ll use the 240 (light machine gun) to fire across their bow.” If at that point the boat still doesn’t slow, and Jimmy is cleared to engage, he will unsling the Barrett .50 sniper rifle from its mount on the back of the pilot and co-pilots seats. He will then use a firing harness suspended across the helicopter door frame to support the rifle with which he will shoot holes through the drug-boats engines. “I push aside the 240 and it usually gets swept back by the helicopter slipstream like this,” he said.

Jimmy then went through a variety of firing positions, all, in his opinion, ‘legit,’ while I took photographs. These tips from Jimmy on accuracy really helped me capture something like reality I hope, regardless of the staging. Eventually I felt I had enough to work from. These should make a nice retirement present for him when the big day comes. Cheers Jimmy.

In 2017 a HITRON team stopped its 500th drug boat. It took them just shy of 20 years to reach that amazing total. In that time they have collected 465 tons of cocaine and 30 tons of marijuana en-route to the US, with a wholesale value of almost $17 billion. Yes ‘billion’ with a ‘B.’

A truly incredible feat for the US Coast Guard’s HITRON Squadron. A ‘force from above’ that did not exist two decades ago.

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