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Joint U.S. Military Exercise, Canadian Troops storm the beaches . . . of North Carolina?

WASHINGTON -- They stormed ashore on the windswept coast in waves, a company of 150 Canadian soldiers sent to overwhelm scores of enemy fi ghters holed up in an insurgent stronghold.

It wasn't Somalia, or Haiti or the Persian Gulf, but rather a strip of sandy beach along the North Carolina shore.

The mock invasion of Canadian troops on Friday, with its echoes of past battles on D-Day and at Dieppe, was part of a $19-million exercise aimed at testing the military's plan to deploy an amphibious assault force to future global hotspots.

First envisioned in Ottawa's 2005 defence policy statement, the idea of creating a rapid-reaction marine expeditionary force has become a priority for Gen.

Rick Hillier, the chief of defence staff.

Though the Conservative government has not committed to the project, the scope of this month's exercise off the U.S. Atlantic Coast has demonstrated the military's seriousness about forging ahead.

And, after overseeing the exercise from the deck of an American warship, Canadian offi cers were enthusiastic about the potential role an amphibious assault force could play in expanding Canada's military capability.

"What I really like about it is its extreme fl exibility," said Commodore Paul Maddison, commander of the military's standing contingency force. "In this increasingly complex world we operate in, fl exibility is key." More than 1,100 Canadian service personnel participated in the exercise off the coast of Camp Le Jeune, the U.S. Marine Corps' major base along the eastern seaboard.

Canadian troops from CFB Valcartier, aboard more than two dozen light-armoured vehicles and G-Wagons, rushed the coast on landing craft dispatched from the USS Gunston Hall, a 186-metre amphibious assault ship loaned to Canada by the American military.

They were aided by two dozen troops dropped onto the beach from converted Sea King helicopters in an elaborate war-game scenario designed to restore order to a failed state.

Simultaneous to the exercise's amphibious landing, Canadian personnel were also confronted with a convoy of inshore attack craft and required to do a maritime interdiction of "suspect" vessels carrying a terror leader.

The goal was to develop a skill set the Canadian military has not used extensively since the famed landings at Normandy in the Second World War.

But, the 21st century version has been updated for the post-9-11 security climate.

"When you think of the Second World War and DDay, you are really talking about opposed amphibious assault -- putting people across the beach under fi re," Maddison said in an interview from the Gunston Hall. "That's not what I am looking at. What I am looking at is an expeditionary task force with an amphibious capability. At the time and place of the commander's choosing, where the opposing forces are most vulnerable, that is when and where we would insert our force." As envisioned by Canadian military offi cials, the new amphibious force could be deployed in the aftermath of crises including natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the South Asian tsunami.

It could be valuable in non-combat situations such as the recent evacuation of Canadians from south Lebanon, or in "mid-intensity" confl ict zones such as Haiti, Maddison says.

But military planners believe the greatest potential for an amphibious force would be in rapid deployment to war zones in failed states with major cities along coastal areas.

"We can pretty well predict about 75 per cent of future crises and confl icts will occur in the littoral regions of the world, those regions where urban centres can be infl uenced directly from the sea," Maddison says. "Given that, it makes sense to look at building a sea-based, globally deployable, rapidresponsive task force with sea, air and land fi ghting components in it."