RAAF assists on Operation Christmas Drop

Corporal Teome Matamua and Sergeant Phillip McIllvaney, both loadmasters from the Australian Army’s 176th Air Dispatch Squadron, deliver the first bundle of Operation Christmas Drop 2015 to the island of MogMog.

Operation Christmas Drop is the world’s longest-running humanitarian airdrop operation, running annually since 1952.

Sixty fours years on, Australian and Japanese C-130 aircrews joined joined their US counterparts to assist, flying out of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

Operation Christmas Drop is a humanitarian aid and disaster-relief training event where C-130 aircrews perform low-cost, low-altitude (LCLA) airdrops on small, remote islands, providing critical supplies to 56 small communities throughout the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, Federated States of Micronesia and Republic of Palau.

Payloads were donated by USAF and civilian communities in Guam and Japan, and included rice and canned food, books and educational material, toys, hooks and fishing line, tools, and assorted clothing.

US Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Katrina Brisbin

 

 

 

 

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