A ship from the Philippine Navy of the First World War to use as a target in a combat exercise by American and Philippine forces accidentally sank for hours before the simulated assault on Monday, which prompted the exercise to be canceled, said American and Philippin military officials.
The BRP Miguel Malvar, which was put out of service by the Philippine Navy in 2021, took water while being towed in rugged waters against the disputed southern China Sea and has flowed around 30 naval miles from the Western province of the Philippines of Zambales. No one was on board when the ship was registered, then sank, said the Philippine army.
The American and Philippine forces would carry out other live shot maneuvers off Zambales on Monday despite the premature sinking of Malvar. The ship was built as a patrol ship for the US Navy in the 1940s and was transferred to the Navy of Vietnam before the Philippine army acquired it, said Captain of the Philippine Navy John Percie Alcos.
“It is a dilapidated ship of 80 years and he could not resist the agitated sea,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Philippin John Paul Salgado to the Associated Press.
Originally appointed the USS Brattleboro, the ship was in service for the US Navy for more than 20 years. He was strongly involved in the Battle of Okinawa where the ship “treated more than 200 men seriously injured and rescued more than 1,000 survivors of ships flowing”, ” According to the American navy. Brattleboro won three stars of the battle during the Second World War.
/ AP
The ship was sold to the Republic of Vietnam in 1966, said the US Navy. The Philippine Navy acquired and renovated the ship after its crew fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975, according to the France-Press agency.
The exercise of projection of ships was planned in an offshore area against the Scarborough speaker, which was closely kept by the Chinese Coast Guard, the Navy and the alleged militia ships.
The Philippines also claim the fishing atoll, which is around 137 miles west of Zambales. The Chinese and Philippine forces have had increasingly hostile confrontations in Scarborough’s waters and airspace in recent years.
The pierce of a ship to ship canceled would have been the third to be staged by the Treaty Allies in recent years. It was supposed to be one of the strong points of the large-scale annual military exercises in the United States and the Philippines from April 21 to May 9 with around 14,000 participants in the United States and the Philippine Forces.
Called Balikatan, Tagalog for shoulder shoulder, combat exercises have become more and more focused on the defense of Philippine sovereignty in the face of the growing aggression of China in the Southern China Sea, which Beijing practically claims its entirety.
Simulated battle scenes that have been staged so far, including the retirement of an island of hostile forces, have reflected the insurance of the Trump administration, notably by the defense secretary Pete Hegseth, that the United States would be satisfied with his commitment to the Treaty to defend the Philippines in case the Philippine Forces suffer an armed attack, including in the South Sea.
On Sunday, the American, Australian and Philippine forces practiced the retirement of an island of the hostile forces in the coastal city of Balabac, in the west of the province of Palawan, which faces the Southern China Sea.
The Japanese forces and the British navies have joined as an observers of the fighting exercise, which “highlighted increasing interoperability and cohesion among partner countries in the maintenance of regional security,” said Salgado.
“What we have seen since Trump returned to the White House is a remarkable level of continuity in the American-Philippine alliance not only in joint military exercises, but also in the American statements that the alliance is` `iron,” said Derek Grossman, main defense analyst at Rand Corporation.
“The Trump administration is trying to maintain pressure on China thanks to its support in the Philippines,” said Grossman, but added that it is not clear “how sustainable this commitment will be that the Trump administration seems less bellicist on China than its predecessors”.
China vehemently opposed such exercises involving American forces in or near the Sea of Southern China or Taiwan, island democracy, which Beijing Prisses As a province and threatened to annex by force if necessary.
US and Filipino military officials, however, insisted that combat exercises were not designed in thinking about China, but have a deterrent in acts of aggression in the region.
