"They are all above the mean," Dr. Kurt Campbell said of the Australians. "These are guys that are excelling. And we're gonna double down on this. And that commitment is powerful and impressive," he added.
Gilday or Campbell did not specify the exact number and specialization of Australian submariners graduating. However, The Nuclear Power School offers training for various tasks related to operating and maintaining nuclear reactors on ships and submarines. The Australians would likely have gained practical experience using relevant equipment during their training.
"It's a phased approach that's been very transparent in terms of our beginning to conduct more port visits with the Australians and a phased approach to then begin forward deploying our submarines, perhaps up to four, out of [the] HMAS Stirling [naval base], near Perth," Gilday explained. The plan is then eventually "to co-crew those [U.S.] submarines with Australians in a very deliberate manner and then, finally, get us to a point where Australia...