Description Exercise Crocodile is a major Australian-led joint bilateral exercise promoting interoperability between the two nations. Exercise Crocodile replaced the Kangaroo series of exercises. A joint exercise involves forces from more than one service while a combined exercise involves forces from more than one country. Crocodile combines these two by bringing together U.S. and Australian air, ground and naval forces under a set scenario.
Crocodile '99 (CROC-99) was the first in a series of Joint Chiefs of Staff-directed joint-combined exercises involving the Australian Defense Force and the U.S. military. More than 28,000 Australian troops were in the Northern Territory for Australia's biggest military exercise of the year. Other countries such as New Zealand and Indonesia did not participate in, or have observers at Crocodile 99.
The main part of the exercise took place from September 13 to October 22 along the eastern coast of Australia. The RAAF base "Scherger" on Cape York, which is normally a bare base, was activated. Further south around the Shoalwater Bay training area live firing and bombing took place in environmentally sensitive areas, near the last habitat of Dugongs in the southern reef area.
A 4000-plus-strong contingent of US troops passed through Brisbane Airport over four weeks en route to exercise Crocodile '99 at Shoalwater Bay. The US soldiers arrived on charter flights from Japan, Korea, Hawaii and mainland USA. The 11 charter flights involved MD11 and Lockheed Tristar aircraft from American Trans Air and World Airways. After receiving a meal in a specially-erected tent at Brisbane Airport, the troops traveled by bus to Rockhampton and Gladstone. Transportation to and in the Shoalwater Bay Training Areas was restricted to four wheel drive vehicles. They left Australia via Brisbane Airport from late October to mid November.
About 3,000 United States Marines were in Central Queensland for two months as part of the joint military exercise, Crocodile 99. They saw plenty of action at Australia's Shoal Water Bay training facility. Between September and November 1999 a contingent of several thousand US Navy, Marines and Air Force personnel together with members of the Australian Defence Force participated in a training exercise, around Shoalwater Bay in Queensland.
