The Italian Navy Comes to Pointe Noire

Ships come and go every day in the port of Pointe Noire.  We were delighted to see the arrival of an Italian Air Craft Carrier directly across from the Africa Mercy.  Some of our crew visited the Italian ship and arranged for over 200 of us to take a tour.

The Aircraft Carrier as seen from our Port Side.

The ship was here for several days.  We had many visitors from the Ship.  Some of their technical staff met with our engineers and provided some help that we needed.  There were lots of good personal exchanges.

One usually thinks of Navy ships as being used for military conflict.  This ship has been on a humanitarian mission.  They have a state of the art hospital on board and travel to provide surgeries in African countries.
Most of the surgeries are for cleft lip/palates that are coordinated through Operations Smile. http://www.operationsmile.org/

When we entered the ship, it looked like a convention center!.  This ship was promoting Italian products and quality.  While there were some military displays, most were commercial displays for Italian manufacturing or some charitable organization that they partner with such as Operation Smile.

This deck is where we started and ended our tour.

The hospital has Xray and other imaging devices on board.  They have rooms for patients and family members.

Mercy Ship crew touring the hospital

There were no surgeries in the Congo.  (Mercy Ships was taking care of that and has so far provided over one hundred cleft lip surgeries so far).  The ship was in The Congo to promote Italian business and products.

We were assured that although the ship has never experienced combat, they are ready if necessary and have ongoing training whenever they are at sea.

The flight deck was a welcome site.  Even though it was raining when we started the tour, it stopped for a while as we were able to get up close to the helicopters and the Harrier jets on board.  It was interesting to see the ski jump at the end of the runway which can be used to provide a little extra lift.

We were told that all the pilots received their training in the USA.
Since were were in the port, no aircraft was taking off, so there were no demonstrations or offers for free rides!

Here I am on the flight deck during a break from the rain.

Our tour host spoke English well and had a great deal of enthusiasm and good sense of humor.

This was one opportunity we had here to share and receive hospitality.  I came away from this tour appreciating the use of Italy's military to promote and achieve much good.  Along with surgeries on the ship, their crew goes into African countries and helps build or repair things like schools, medical clinics or assist churches and other philanthropic  organizations. It's quite a paradigm shift when I think about the services provided by people in military service.



Chuck