And I asked if anyone knew what it was. The reports came in from all over, and the newspapers had more detail, which I'm happy to report back to our waiting fans.
The Cairns post had this picture on the cover of their Friday, May 11 edition:
Command ship USS Blue Ridge and amphibious assault ship USS Germantown arrived in Cairns yesterday as their last port-of-call before heading down to Shoalwater Bay, near Rockhampton, to participate in a biennal joint US-Australian amphibious exercise...
Cairns economist Bill Cummings likened the arrival of the ships to having two massive cruise ships visiting for a longer period of time than just until May 15.
The 190m USS Blue Ridge is carrying about 1400 crew and was anchored off Yorkeys Knob for a number of days before docking at Trinity Wharf yesterday.
The USS Germantown, which carries helicopters on its top deck and has an internal dock for launching landing craft, has about 1100 crew.
Last night, a United States Air Force C-141 Starlifter aircraft was also due in at Cairns airport to join three smaller aircraft already there which will be involved in the exercise.
Exercise Tandem Thrust has been described as a combined crisis action planning and contingency response military training exercise involving soldiers, sailors, air force personnel and marines.
About 12,000 Australians and 15,000 Americans will take part in the biennial exercise at Shoalwater Bay throughout May...."
I was also able to see that 42 is the hull number of the Germantown, and a sailor had a hat on in town which I think said LDS-42, if that means anything.
There's the info - hope you enjoy it!