“America’s Newsroom” co-anchor Bill Hemmer made a journey few get to experience last week, embedding with the U.S. Navy during its “Operation Ice Camp 2024” in the Arctic Ocean.
“Our Joint Force’s ability to operate in all domains, to include the Arctic, is vital to our national security,” Rear Adm. Andrew Miller, the commander of the Undersea Warfighting Development Center, said in a press release about the importance of Operation Ice Camp last week.
The three-week operation, which was previously known as Ice Exercise (ICEX), has been held every other year since 1946, but this year’s version of the operation may be the most important yet.
Hemmer was invited to tag along for a portion of this year’s operation and travel to the Arctic, where the Fox News host saw the work the U.S. Navy does in the region firsthand.
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Fox News Bill Hemmer holds American flag near Ice Camp Whale. (Fox News – Bill Hemmer)
His journey started near Washington, D.C., at Andrews Air Force Base, where Hemmer caught a nearly eight-hour flight to an airport in the remote Alaskan town of Deadhorse. From there, the Fox News host had to fly another 200 miles north over ice-covered waters to the Beaufort Sea, where he linked up with the sailors and scientists carrying out operations at “Ice Camp Whale.”
Upon his arrival at the camp, Hemmer noted the “bone-chilling cold” of the demanding landscape, which included the threat of ice cracks and polar bears. But the service members and scientists of Ice Camp Whale aren’t just there to train in a unique and dangerous cold weather environment, Hemmer found, noting the region has been taking on increased strategic importance over the last few years.
Eight countries have territory north of the Arctic Circle: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States, Canada, Denmark (Greenland), and Iceland. All but one of those countries, Russia, is a member of NATO. Two of those countries, Sweden and Finland, have joined NATO within the last year, a response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine in early 2022.
The outlier, Russia, is top of mind for U.S. military leaders operating in the Arctic, including Navy Adm. Daryl Caudle, who told Hemmer that Russia considers the region its “backyard.”
“Russia considers this their backyard,” Caudle told Hemmer from Ice Camp Whale. “And they would love nothing more than take claim to the entire Arctic region. It’s full of resources, the trade routes are opening more and more each year… they consider this a place that they have dominance.”
Fox News Crew films at Ice Camp Whale. (Fox News – Bill Hemmer)
Fox News crew outside of the USS Hampton. (Fox News – Bill Hemmer)
“I am worried from a standpoint of I don’t want us to go to some type of shooting match with Russia because I’m going to lose friends and people are going to die,” Mike Brown, the USS Hampton’s commanding officer, told Hemmer from aboard the submarine. “But I think this U.S. submarine force is ready if that’s what we’re called to do.”
But Russia isn’t the only threat looming in the region, with Hemmer noting that China has recently been trying to gain its own foothold in the Arctic. Similar to its controversial military bases that have popped up in the South China Sea, China has established a science lab in the Arctic that Hemmer noted could be used to facilitate transit, mine for resources, and serve as a base for its own military operations.
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Unlike Russia, which has been operating militarily in the Arctic for generations, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in 2018, a sign of the country’s growing ambitions around the globe.
The Northern Lights from Ice Camp Whale. (Fox News – Bill Hemmer)
