On Tues­day, Pacif­ic Air Forces report­ed that U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and Japan Air Self Defense Force air­craft con­duct a large-scale joint and bilat­er­al inte­gra­tion train­ing exer­cise Aug. 18, 2020. 

Four B‑1B Lancers, two B‑2 Spir­it Stealth Bombers, and four F‑15C Eagles con­duct­ed Bomber Task Force mis­sions simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with­in the Indo-Pacif­ic region over the course of 24 hours.

Pacif­ic Air Forces rou­tine­ly con­ducts BTF oper­a­tions to show the Unit­ed States’ com­mit­ment to allies and part­ners in the Indo-Pacif­ic area of responsibility.

“Our unique strength as an Air Force is our abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate inte­grat­ed actions with our joint team­mates and allies and part­ners to chal­lenge com­peti­tors in a time and place of our choos­ing,” said Gen. Ken Wils­bach, Pacif­ic Air Forces com­man­der. “These simul­ta­ne­ous air­pow­er mis­sions demon­strat­ed our capac­i­ty and readi­ness to deliv­er a wide range of proac­tive, scal­able options to quick­ly deploy our forces to sup­port our mis­sion of ensur­ing a free and open Indo-Pacif­ic theater.”

The first dis­play of air­pow­er came when two B‑1s from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas took off from Dyess and flew to the Sea of Japan. Once there, they inte­grat­ed with the Koku Jieitai, or Japan Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF), and fur­ther strength­ened rela­tion­ships by train­ing together.

“The Koku-Jieitai has par­tic­i­pat­ed in bilat­er­al train­ings on con­tin­u­ous basis, and I have no doubt that our efforts result in strength­en­ing the Alliance and part­ner­ship between Japan and the U.S.,” said JASDF Lt. Gen. Shun­ji Izut­su, Air Defense Com­mand com­man­der. “Train­ing in a com­plex sit­u­a­tion like this large force employ­ment improves not only tac­ti­cal skills, but also inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and mutu­al trust.”

While the two BONES were in route to the Sea of Japan anoth­er set of two B‑1s took off from Ander­sen Air Force Base, Guam.

In addi­tion to the two sets of bomber mis­sions, four F‑15C Eagles from Kade­na Air Base, Japan, also made their way to the Sea of Japan to inte­grate with the four B‑1s, the U.S. Navy’s USS Ronald Rea­gan Car­ri­er Strike Group, F‑35 Light­en­ing IIs assigned to Marine Corps Air Sta­tion Iwaku­ni, Japan, and F‑15J air­craft from the JASDF to con­duct large force exer­cise training.

“High end, inte­grat­ed train­ing with our Air Force peers enhances our capa­bil­i­ty to respond to any con­tin­gency, and meet any chal­lenge,” said U.S. Navy Rear Adm. George Wikoff, Ronald Rea­gan Car­ri­er Strike Group com­man­der. “U.S. joint inte­gra­tion demon­strates our unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to region­al defense agree­ments with our allies and partners.”

Upon com­ple­tion of inte­gra­tion and train­ing, the fight­ers returned to Kade­na while the two B‑1s returned to their home sta­tion in South Dako­ta and the oth­er two returned to Dyess.

“U.S. strate­gic bomber forces project strength and deter region­al threats to our free and open Indo-Pacif­ic. Inte­grat­ing Marine tac­ti­cal air­craft allows us to demon­strate the advan­tages cre­at­ed by our own unique capa­bil­i­ties and sup­port these impor­tant assets,” said Lt. Gen. Steven Rud­der, com­man­der of U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacif­ic. “Our joint avi­a­tion team is unmatched in its abil­i­ty to com­mand and con­trol the mis­sions required in this com­plex and dynam­ic glob­al envi­ron­ment. We are com­mit­ted to our allies and part­ners across the region.”

Final­ly, while inte­gra­tion and train­ing were hap­pen­ing in the Sea of Japan, two B‑2 Spir­it Stealth Bombers from White­man Air Force Base, Mis­souri cur­rent­ly deployed to Naval Sup­port Facil­i­ty Diego Gar­cia deliv­ered their own unique capa­bil­i­ties in the theater.

In the Indi­an Ocean, the Spir­its con­duct­ed joint inter­op­er­abil­i­ty tac­tics train­ing before return­ing to Diego Garcia.

These mis­sions show the abil­i­ty of U.S. Air Force Glob­al Strike Com­mand to deliv­er lethal, ready, long-range strike options to Geo­graph­ic Com­bat­ant Com­man­ders any­time, anywhere.

“I’m proud of how we as a mil­i­tary and our allies and part­ners worked togeth­er to demon­strate our resolve for a free and open Indo-Pacif­ic,” said Wilsbach