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Andersen families help in Christmas drop


IT WASN’T just local residents who contributed and helped out in the Air Force’s recent Christmas drop to the neighboring islands, which wound up yesterday.

Tech. Sgt. Steven Wilson of the 36th Operations Group public affairs office said Andersen airmen and their families donated supplies, gifts and other festive items at selected points around the base.

Volunteers then helped palletize the items, which were loaded on 374th Air Wing C-130 Hercules aircraft visiting Andersen Air Force Base from Yokota Air Base, Japan.

The aircraft transported the pallets to various islands in the Western Pacific and delivered them by parachute from the rear cargo area of the C-130.

According to the Air Force, the holiday aerial delivery operation was made possible because of its unique capability to deliver palletized warfighting supplies from the air to any place on the globe.

This capability can also be used for relief operations and other humanitarian operations like the annual holiday drop.

According to Senior Airman Joshua Coda, a 36th Airlift Squadron C-130 loadmaster, his C-130 crew delivered eight pallets of holiday cargo to Ta’u, a small island at the eastern end of the Samoa archipelago, Satawan Atoll, which is part of the Mortlock Island in the Caroline Island chain, and Kutu, a southeast islet of the Satawan Atoll.

All eight bundles made it to the villages.

The aircraft and aircrews used for the holiday drop operation were based at Yokota Air Base, Japan.

All in all, they dropped a total of 18.5 tons of holiday cargo during their stay at Andersen.