Remember the young man of 16 who disappeared from Florida in Dec, 2005, to head for Iraq in search of a story for his journalism class?

It looks like his parents did know…

And there isn’t such a jounalism class…

And his father has been arrested for forging US Passports and Military IDs before…

And they live in a $4M dollar house…

So what’s the real story?

Read an expose here.

Update 03/14/2006: From a cheesel (a commenter on the LGF thread):

#27 cheesel 3/14/2006 09:29AM PST
#5, Curt…

New Muslim flick–Boy tries to join Hezbollah to fight the infidels:

“Ferris Hassan’s Day Off”.

Thank you, Cinnamon Stillwell and Tom Blumer for doing some real reporting!

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!

Ben Garrison, one of the crew members of the USS MASON (DE-529) told me the movie “Proud” would be showing in NYC @ the Magic Johnson Theater beginning on the 10th of this month.

Quick background: The USS MASON was the only large ship in WWII manned by an African American crew. The story is quite amazing.

Ben also mentioned the movie would be being released on DVD soon.

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!

Ah, the wonderful world of OPDEC….

I spent an afternoon with the widow of a B-29 pilot, who flew with the 20th Air Force in the Pacific Theater. Walter was the Co-Pilot of the “Ancient Mariner” (“Z Square 53”).

She let me sort through many of her husband’s books and then she told me an interesting story.

It turns out the whole deal about eating your carrots to improve your eyesight was actually operational deception to cover for the fact that the Norden bomb sight had been placed in service. So long as the enemy believed our aircrews just had eagle eyes from eating many carrots, then they’d not realize there was a piece of equipment they needed to place on their capture and exploit plans. Just think, it was such a good plan that it has hung on all these years in the common knowledge data base of parents and those trying to get that little advantage hunting or flying.

Moral of the story: You can tell your mom you won’t see any better if you eat your carrots….nor any worse if you don’t.

Update on Vegtable Mythology – 3/7/2006: I had breakfast with my friend, Jim, Sr and told him this story. He said they were sort of force fed carrots as pilots, and also said he didn’t have much need for a Norden Bomb Sight, so he was never in on the plan to confuse the enemies of Democracy.

From Part I, the “Bottom Line”: The F-14 Tomcat was a superior piece of technology that would counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union and her client states. All things have their purpose.

In this part, I will present some things from my life that I saw of the influence of the F-14. Way back in 1971, I went to take a physical and when asked to “read line 6 on the chart on the back of the door.,” I squinted and said little for about 10 seconds> Next I heard: “Do you wear glasses?” Next I thought: “I CAN”T FLY!”

Yep, it was true. No 20/20 for me. In retrospect, I then also realized why it was sometimes a challenge to read things the teachers wrote on the chalkboard, but I had never connected it with bad eye sight, just to liking to sit in the back of the classroom. I also should have known that if both parents wear glasses, it most likely the offspring will also be so afflicted. Anyhow, as you might have grasped, I had planned on being a go fast kind of guy for many years before that fateful day in 11th grade.

Fast forward to fall of 1975. It was the early part of Senior year and time to tell the people in the NROTC office which career path I wanted to go for. I still wanted to fly, but knew the only opportunity was to be a Naval Flight Officer (NFO) (also referred to as the “Guy in Back” (GIB)). I sat down with the officer teaching us and asked his opinion of that choice. His advice was to look for something else I would enjoy, for, at that time, he said, you could be the best GIB in the world, and even a great leader, but…..it was rare to make it past Lt Commander. It seems the pilots had a lock on the upper level ranks, and also things like command of anything avaition. It certainly didn’t sound like a career path for the option of longevity. Message to midshipman closing in on commissioning date was: You better love being the guy in the shadows due to your bad choices in genetic stock.

Ok, other options: Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD)? Wow! Get paid to play with things that go “BOOM!” and skydive/parachute and SCUBA dive all day (when not doing PT)? Sign me UP! Not so fast, due to the rule change that very year which required you to serve a tour in “Unrestricted Line” prior to applying to be accepted in the EOD. Ted Strong, discussed here had told me how much fun it was few months earlier when we met at the NAS Cubi Point O Club. So, scratch option #2. So, I told them I wanted to dress like this:

to go to work in the Navy. That one worked. I would become a Salvor! Well, to make a long story shorter, a discovered when a whole bunch of diving school instructors were all over you at the bottom of the pool, I was getting a little too stressed, so I chose to take a different path, hence my adventures for the next 19 years in Surface Warfare. I did learn you can swim, tap dance on the slit at the bottom of the Ancostia River, and do so much more while wearing 198 lbs of “stuff,” and that “Shorty,” an Army Sgt assigned to the school had little short, stubby legs, and he could beat us in any calestenics, but we’d just leave him behind on the morning 4 mile run.

The F-14 is now reaching significant number in the Fleet at the time. THe special thing is the NFO, specifically called a “Radar Intercept Officer” (RIO) in the back seat became a significant player in the full use of the F-14 system. As a matter of fact, the pilots became relegated to being bus drivers, so the GIB could get to wear he could open up a 55 gal drum of brush on whoop ass for any Soviet bombers coming inbound to the CVBG. The old “lineage” of pilots being supreme beings, in the footsteps of Eddie Rickenbacker, Richard Bong, Manfred von Richtofen and Werner Voss were fading. The crack in the armor began to split. The pilots still got a workout in the Naval Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN), in case they had to cozy up to the bad guys, yet they had no capability to target and launch the AIM-54 Phoenix missile. The RIO did the job.

That is the crucial way that the F-14 Tomcat community, from my outside view. By the middle of my career(mid 80s), some NFOs began to be selected for squardon commands. As time went on, that “ticket punch” than opened doors for the NFOs to command wings and eventually aircraft carriers.

Another phenomena of the times was the economics of the late 70s – early 80s made it better for pilots, particulalry multi-engine rated, to get out after their obligated service was copleted. The airlines were recruiting heavily, and many pilots went. I remember the day I saw the ALNAV message that announced that NFOs could apply for pilot training, if they had served two years in their community. If selected, you would move forward (sideways) in the same airframe only, so P-3 ATACCOs could become P-3 pilots, and F-14 RIOs would go to the front part of the Tomcat cockpit. The vision requirments for the move were 20/200 (correctable). At the time, I was 20/50.

Had I been able to know this in 1975, I’d have gutted out two years in the backseat, knowing I could fly, and eventually have a fair shot at command. Water under the bridge, and I still did exciting things as a “shoe.”

As a note on the diving career that never happened, they made a Special Operations designator (not to be confused with Special Warfare (the SEALS)), which was comprised of Salvage Divers, EOD and Ordnance Management experts. Had I been a diver, I could have entered that program. I didn’t and what happened was there were only 6 CAPT (O-6) billets in the entire community, and the 4 stripers wouldn’t retire, so some great guys never made it very far in rank, only because of personnal issues, and nothing to do with their performance. Most likely, I’d have made LCDR and been “continued” until 20 years, then told to retire. One classmate from the Naval War College, Ed Kittel, happened to have this happen to him. He didn’t get to the NWC because he was just someone filling a billet, he was there because he was very good at what he did. Ed Kittel became a special agent in the FAA, and worked on many crash cases after his retirement in 1992.

The “Bottom Line” here: The Tomcat manning conditions helped elevate the NFO to a greater professional plateau in the eyes of the “system.” Not only did it affect the RIOs in the F-14s, but it helped all the NFOs in all airframes become more of value to the Navy.

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!

Thanks to Cao’s Blog for the OTB!

Idle reading night a few days ago brought this to me. I was reading Seed, a new periodical I just noticed, for the article “The Harsh Light of Science.” The premise is the ansgt of both the scientists and the religious leaders having a serious scientific study of religion, but I digress.

This quote on page 54 (Feb/Mar 2006 issue) jumped right out at me”

“For instance, eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulemia are much less common among women from Muslim countries in which the physical attrativeness of women plays a muted role, relative to that in Westernized countries.”

There you have it. It’s the evil western world destroying women again.
Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the Open Thread!

Last Trap of the Tomcat – Part II

I began this post on 2/22/2006. I filed it as a draft. Today, whislt driving about for work, I began to ponder the effect of the F-14 Tomcat on my “generation.” Part I will cover some history, and in that, a discussion of how/why the Military gets such toys, and also why it quits using them, too.

Military.com reports the last F-14 combat mission ever has occurred.

The “Anytime, Baby!” guys got their airframe about the time I was commissioned. A few years later, as counter-battery in the recruiting wars, the Navy gleefully helped Hollywood make “Top Gun.”

I stopped there, but had captured the article. Here we go….

The Tomcat went into service the same year I did, 1972. It, as with all other equipment the US Military buys, was bought with a purpose in mind, with the operational requirements laid out by a bunch of people trying to project into the future, many years before then. Being a major procurement program to replace the McDonald F-4 Phantom II, the entire process received an equivalent amount of scrutiny by all levels of government.

The story within this story is instructive for those who often wonder “What were they thinking?” when they see some piece of expensive military equipment being a perceived “misfit” in it’s role of the moment. The beginning of a development is a “threat assessment.” What does the bad guy have now (since you just got surprised) or what do you think he is building, based on available intelligence? The answer to the threat assessment then makes the “OR” (operational requirement) pretty clear. You have to be able to counter the threat. The ORs come from the “Fleet” (in the case of the Navy), making sure the people currently assigned to the duties of war fighting make the major input to the capabilities the new system will have to meet. Shore duty “pukes” and contractors have to sit on the side lines and bite their tongues, or lobby at the bar after the big meeting, hoping to get their 2 cents into the equation. The purpose is keep the people who are not going to have their body parts on the line from “gold plating” projects, at the expense of the tax payers’ good graces. For all the grumbling about these decisions, know it’s a pretty good system to keep costs down, but, yes, sometimes a really expensive hammer does show up in a project plan.

Along the way in all of this, the ORs become reality when the actual contractor is chosen to build the item. In most all cases, this comes many years later, and the warfighters who suffered through the many hours of meetings, at the expense of their professional development, have moved on the retirement or shore duty, and now the people behind them have to keep the flame burning and answering questions of the contractors, the Pentagon at large, and taxpayers. This can be a daunting task, for even if the note taking in the early days was exceptionally well done, there never seems to be the time, nor were many of the side conversations that supported some of the decisions captured to aid in the present discussions. In this, the oversight of the Operational Test Force comes into play, and the project officers “ride herd” on the Fleet guys and the contractors to make sure the equipment does what was laid out in the system requirements, which came from the ORs.

That’s the short way into the F-14 story. In the 60s, the Soviet Union was building up its fleet for defense of the Motherland. While the oceans provided a great buffer, our ability to conduct long range air strikes with several varieties of conventional and nuclear capable platforms, such as the A-3D Sky Warrior, the A-4 Skyhawk, and the A-6 Intruder, the Soviets wanted to take out our carriers before they could get within launch range of the homeland. The counter force to ours was not Soviet aircraft carriers, but massive amounts of SNAF (Soviet Naval Air Force) bombers, equipped with supersonic cruise missiles. Additionally, they put guided missile submarines (SSG/SSGN) to sea, and also put the missile capability aboard surface ships, mostly of the cruiser size, when it was a missile designed to sink air craft carriers quickly.

Soviet TU-16 “Badgers,” TU-95 “Bears,” and later TU-22 “Blinders” and TU-160 “Backfires” would come in massive formations, guided towards CVBGs (Carrier Battle Groups) by forward observer platforms, usually of the TU-95 “Bear D” variant, using it’s underslung “Big Bulge” search radar and video data link to pass the information of the location to the armed aircraft, submarines and surface ships, waiting over our long range radar horizons. The bombers would be armed with cruise missiles that were essentially the size of a small fighter aircraft, packed with explosives. The AS-2 “Kipper,” AS-4 “Kitchen,” -5 “Kelt,” and -6s “Kingfish” were all in this category, capable of being launched from 100 to 200 miles from the carriers. The AS-4 and -6 were particularly nasty, as the climbed high, then approached at several times the speed of sound, and then pitched over towards the target at a very steep angle, making it exceptionally difficult for our gun systems to track and engage the missile in its terminal phase (think ORs for those gun systems that did not envision that threat capability when they were developed, rather than people consciously building a “bad” system).

Welcome to the party the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. Admiral “Hammerin’ Hank” Mustin, while the Second Fleet Commander, often stated his doctrine of “shoot the archer, not the arrow” to say the easier shot is the one at the sub, or not too supersonic, large profile bomber, than to deal with multiple, small, high speed inbound cruise missile, and the F-14 did this in spades. Capt Lex may yuck it up that the F-14 is gone, but even he knows it was the right platform for its time. In a match up between the two aircraft for some DACT (dissimilar aircraft training), and “BVR” (beyond visual range) weaponry being used as it was intended, the “Anytime, Baby!” aviators would be the first ones back with notches in the belts, drinking a few at the O Club and saying things like “Yeah, we had them on radar in plenty of time to smoke them like cheap cigars at about 100NM. You should have heard them whining all the way to impact about how it was so unfair for us to have Phoenix onboard!”
>/p>

The AIM-54 Phoenix missile, targeted by the AN/AWG-9 radar was more than a match for the Soviet bombers. Being able to be punched off the deck with 6 AIM-54s, it could “buster” (in afterburners) out to Combat Air Patrol (CAP) station on a threat vector quickly (combat radius of 500 miles +), being capable of doing more than twice the speed of sound (think 1500+ mph as a round figure, and BTW, that’s Mach 2+!). The AWG-9 radar could scan a sector, and simultaneously track a target for each missile. The AIM-54 range was demonstrated to be in excess of 100 NM. Add a CAP station about 200 miles down the threat axis and a few sections of F-14s, and the bad guys were going to have tough sledding to reach their launch points. More than likely, they would be swimming with the fish before they could get their cruise missiles off their rails, which, from my perspective, was a very, very good thing. Oh, I forgot to mention, not only could these cruise missiles of the Soviets go really fast, and carry a lot of explosives (enough to do serious damage to an armored aircraft carrier), they could carry nuclear warheads, as well, which meant those of us in the “screen” in small boys, or aboard the supporting oilers and ammunition ships in the vicinity would be in serious danger as well. I really liked the idea of the F-14 being the main fighter in service.

Compare and contrast this with the oh, so sexy “lawn dart” known as the F/A-18 Hornet. Is this an aircraft the pilots dearly love? Does it have a really cool radar that does serious magic, can be used in air-to-air or air-to-ground modes? Yes, it does. Can it be equally at home yanking and banking in ACM (air combat maneuvers), as well as “mud moving?” Yep, that too. Can the Hornet dogfight successfully without having the jettison stores meant for a ground target? Check. Does the Hornet have the “legs” to get way out on station and still put a major hurting on a bomber with a 200 NM reach? Not so sure (with out lots of tankers, which then decrements the number of fighters being fighters)? Nope. Interestingly enough, the initial OR for the F/A-18 had a combat radius that wasn’t attainable during operational testing. It seems the then SECNAV, John Lehman directed the combat radius for the F/A-18 in the test documents be lessened, so that we could get the production rolling, hence the knick name of “lawn darts” being applied. Toss them up, and they come back down. The F/A-18E/F “Super Hornets” that came along later provided more fuel tank space in the wings, addressing this issue.

Enough for now….if ou’ve hung on this long, stay tuned for Part II, where I will discuss how the Tomcat was a revolutionary aircraft in the annals of the Navy from a personnel perspective…

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!

Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the Open Thread!

In reference to the current debate over the NSA “wiretapping” issue, we have been here before.

The situation is in many ways similar, but, it was a different time. It was a time when an attack on American soil awakened a sleeping giant, that then, with a crippled, and barely adequate military, travelled across two large oceans and set their youth into harm’s way, with the will of the people firmly behind them.

The first engagement in the Pacific was Pearl Harbor. The enemy took the initiative and caught us unprepared for the challenge, despite General Billy Mitchell having shown us we were not able to protect our national security in the late 30’s.

The next engagement in that theater was the Battle of the Coral Sea, where a non aviation admiral, Admiral Raymond Spruance, took a new type of battle force against a powerful enemy and he held the line of the Japanese advance into the southern Pacific. As a side note, much has been written critisizing Adm Spruance for his perceived lack of agressiveness with his fleet, but the bottom line is we had suffered major blows and his conservative approach acheived a turning point, where they progressed no more.

Next came a tiff in the vicinity of a very small island, big enough for little more than an airstrip and populated by gooney birds named Midway. It was an incredible naval victory for the US, where we caught the Japanese carriers by surprise. Heroism was a common virtue in that battle, with famous names of ships such as USS THATCH and USS McCLUSKEY being named after valiant aviators who carried the day in that moment.

What allowed us to sink four Japanese carriers to the loss of our one (YORKTOWN)? It began with what we might call “wiretapping” today: Interception and reading of the Japanese Naval Code.

The story is incredible, how a group of Navy code breakers struggled to break the code, then had a dummy “in the clear” message sent from Midway, saying the island was running out of fresh water. In subsequent intercepts, the Japanese coded messages reported this “condition,” and therefore our experts were then confident they had the right methods to ensure other coded messages “breaks” could be given the highest degree of confidence.

Read this excerpt from a site discussing the history of the Midway Atoll:

During World War II, the U.S. utilized a great military intelligence advantage over the Japanese, in both their radar capabilities and code breaking. The radar on Midway gave position, bearing, and altitude. Intelligence experts discovered that the Japanese planned to attack an unknown site referred to as “AF.” To test the theory that Midway was the target, a disinformation message regarding Midway’s freshwater supply was sent out over open communication channels. The Japanese intercepted the message and redistributed it in their JN 25 code, saying that “AF” needed freshwater. This strengthened intelligence allowed Admiral Nimitz to reinforce Midway’s defenses and station additional bombers, fighters, and torpedo aircraft on Eastern Island in preparation for the suspected attack.

Clearly, our govenrment officials, with the sanction of the President, had listened in on the tactical and strategic messages of the enemy, who intended to harm us, in this case, once more, as a follow up to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Across time, this method has been hailed as the runing point of the War in the Pacific, and how in less than a year, a underdeveloped Navy had come back from a major blow, devised entirely new strategies, and had taken the fight to the enemy. Pretty impressive.

Should we now impunge the character of President Roosevelt (who had the Bill of Rights as a restriction on his actions) and demand a reversal? No, that would be ludicrous.

Look at the common threads:

1) Japan wanted resources. We blocked them with embargos. They decided to destroy us in order to be able to go to the areas of the world where oil, metal and rubber resources were, and take them via a military presense. We reacted with economic sanctions on them, thus causing shortages of the strategic materials of the day.

2) Japan, acting as the agressor, attacked our soverign territory.

3) Japan planned another attack on our territiory.

4) Government officials, acting on official orders, listened in on the conversations of the enemy (Japan) in order to find out how to defend our nation.

5) Japan lost the war, yet is now a major democratic and economic powerhouse, and is not occupied by the United States, in fact, they are one of our closest allies.

See the connection? The difference is the modern day agressors in this story do not have the covering of a soverign nation status, and defined borders, but otherwise, they still desire to attack and destroy us, for we interfere with their expansionist plans, and desire for major power status on the world’s stage. The Islamic terrorists do not want the strategic materials, they just want sharia law spread worldwide and have proven they will kill those who are 1) weak and 2) those who resist.

Polish mathematicians broken the German Enigma Codes, and turned that information over to the British, who exploited it throughouot the way, and shared the intelligence with us to re-route naval convoys of troops and material around U-Boats in the Atlantic.

We also were reading the Berlin-Tokyo diplomatic message, as a result of breaking that Japanese set of codes.

In each of these three cases, this effort produced free people and not more oppression. Why can’t anyone see that in the current situation?

Thanks to Little Green Footballs for the Open Thread!

Thanks to Mudville Gazette for the Open Post!

I use Netscape as my browser. I started with it in the way back days of the web and have kept it.

The Netscape homepage hilights the news with a main article, then three that rotate in a window just underneath that.

Top story:

“7 Children Die in Hiway Crash; 15 Year Old Driving” – Yes, a bad thing…

Rotating stories:

1: “Breakfast Battles: Watch Out McD’s” – It seems the Egg McMuffin is loosing ground in the fast food, spike your sugar and cholesteral in the morning market. HORRORS!

2: “Militant Group Wins Palestinian Election; PM Resigns” – mmmm…Sorta important, but no words really grab you much.

3: “A Happy Hot Rod Homecoming” – Cool! The dude gets his Vette that was stolen 37 years ago….

Wow…news of violent, islamic terrorists winning a majority of the seats in the election os a soverign nation is (pardon the pun) “sandwiched” between news of a major fast food chain losing market share at the drive thru window and some guy getting his car back. I’d say “they” sort of missed out on the understanding of the importance of each of the news stories, but then again, we can’t say “they” never report “good” news….

The media said they don’t censor the news, but there is so much to choose from and so little time to report it, they have to select carefully. I submit their selections, particulalry today, as the democratic mechanism of voting has brought a procalimed terrorist organization into the access to nation status. But, then again, Iran did the same thing, and speaking of that, the media sure isn’t very concerned about that either….

Part I, Part II, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII Part IX

I recall the weather was exceptional. Clear skies and gentle low swells, as we forged our way north, communicating “the old fashioned way,” semaphore, flashing light (Morse Code) and flag hoists. The stuff a WWII movie is made of. When tactical manuvering is done this way, and the crews do that well, it’s pretty impressive to see many thousands of tons of steel dance across the waves in unison, or planned staging of their movements in an aquatic ripple effect.

Traffic was light and we came across one ship of significance, a Soviet merchant ship. “Back in the day,” every Soviet vessel that sailed was a mobile intelligence gathering platform. This encouter became a point of focus for our boring, but important transit. The BIDDLE was dispatched out ahead to keep tabs on her, and the SARATOGA and thge other ships were maneuvered to stay a good distance away, but if you can see a ship, then it can see you. That’s a good rule to aply in such situations, especially bright sunny days with no clouds at all.

Back to the background:

The BIDDLE fell behind out Battle Group, much to the chargrin of our CSO, CDR Nurthen. The rest of us had kept small bags with a few days worth of clothes and our toothbrushes…

To close this line of the story, we all entered the Med, the BIDDLE late, and a few days later, my staff moved to our flagship, the BIDDLE. The CO of the BIDDLE was under the operational command of the Commodore, even though he had a higher “lineal number.” Friction became a part of life, as each man tried to fence off their territory.

Upon our embarkation on the cruiser, which was tasked as the anti-air warfare commander (AAWC) for the Battle Group, we found ourselves, as the ASWC, routinelt in EMCON “A,” as the cruiser would be dispatched down a threat axis in radar and radio silence to ambush the incoming enemy aircraft. We had normally ridden aboard destroyers before, and this didn’t impact us much, except to lose a SONAR from the inner ASW screen. As a side note, one of the normal duties of the ASWC was to also be assigned to be the Screen Commander (SC), responsible for planning and executing the screen of these big deck ships with the destroyers and frigates assigned. Now the problem is we are our on station, only able to listen to the radio circuits, but could not respond. Needless to say, it really put a crimp in our style. It didn’t help any that the BG Watch Officers would try to get ahold of us, and get angry when we didn’t answer there calls.

The “INCHOP” reports were filed, briefings from the 6th Fleet and supporting staffs were made. We then joined up with the SARATOGA BG and “swapped” escorts. It was an odd cruise, for the CORAL SEA would remain in the Med and show off the new thingy I understood to be (possibly) affectionately termed “The Lawn Dart.” It was the first operational deployment of the F/A-18, and therefore a good time to parade the new birds around the shores of our allies, more than likely to let them know we were going to use it, so they should get on board and buy some, too. I found out later, foreign navies (and I’m sure other services) don’t take it too well when you try to sell them something you aren’t planning on using yourself. The F-20 Tigershark aricraft comes to mind in this example.

Anyhow, we “worked up” with one carrier, then swapped out on deployment. We didn’t move the escorts exactly between battle groups, and some discussion followed, ending with a decision to leave BIDDLE with the CORAL SEA in the Med, and the SCOTT (DDG-995) coming with us to the North Arabian Sea (NAS)/Indian Ocean. It sort of balanced the firepower overall. That decision was crucial at another level. Here were two crews, with gear packed for deployment. Once for a winter Med cruise, the other for the Indian Ocean climes. It wasn’t just a bite for the operational issues, but also for the “civies” loaded by the crews for liberty, as well.

And back at the 20 years ago coral:

The Soviet ship didn’t seem to take any interest in us, as they should have. It steamed on it’s way, with out deviating from it’s course. Not unusual for a regular merchant vessel, but definitely strange for a Soviet flagged ship of any category.

A few days after we sailed from DGAR, towards a point in the ocaen south of the Arabian Penninsula, were were given orders to head to the Red Sea and prepare for a northen transit of the Suez Canal….

Part I, Part III,Part IV, Part V, Part VI,
Part VII, Part VIII

Part IX

Needless to say, I was rather disappointed. I mean, get all the way to about 13 degress south of the equator in the Indian Ocean, and you can’t even get a chance to have a beer, and see if the Exchange has any T Shirts to prove you were there.

Back the stateroom, back into khakis, and head aft about a 1/3rd the length of the ship, then up 7 decks via “ladders.” In the Navy, ladders are mostly very steep stairs, not vertical ladders like you might think, but some actually are, usually in the out of the way places, not were there is normal people traffic.

(returning to the build up to the main story line – here’s more back ground)
So, we hauled our stuff to the MONOGAHELA (AO-178) and let that ship’s company decide where to put us. The staterooms are huge on those ships, as they have so much space above the area they needed for tanks for fuel. Most officers on the ship already had two man rooms by themselves, so we fit in well, for last minute visitors. Steve was left to getting our gear hauled to Combat Information Center (CIC), and OSCS Koch went to work getting our Joint Operational Tactical Systems (JOTS) HP-9020 computers set up and patched into the radio circuits for LINK 14 data. Controlled chaos was the mood, but, the hosts took care of us.

We sailed on time, and settled in for a long planned 6 month, but actual 7 month deployment, not expecting a lot besides boring holes in the waters of the North Arabian Sea, letting Iran know we were there….

The MONOGAHELA did not man the CIC full time. They really didn’t need to. With no weapons, and being counted on to just deliver fuel and some cargo, the bridge watch could generally handle the radio traffic and radar watches along with their tasks. They did man up for us, and several Boatswain’s Mates (BMs) were provided, along with the Operations Specialists (OSs) to support us. We found out they had cross trained their senior BMs to be CIC supervisors and they were very proficient at their duties.

We steamed east, and rendezvoused with the USS CAPODANNO out of Newport, RI, the JESSE L BROWN out of Charleston, SC and USS JACK WILLIAMS from Mayport, FL. A few days later, we received a message fro BIDDLE that repairs were completed and she was getting underway, with “excess SOA” authorized. For transits out of local op areas, we had a top speed limit (on over all average speed) for the ship’s movement, which helped plan logistics for fuel delivery, at sea and to forward shore stations. SOA means “speed of advance.” 16 kts was the normal limit. BIDDLE would be steaming about 2/3rds of the way to the Straits of Gibralter at close to her top speed.

About a day out of our arrival at the entrance to the Mediterranean, the BIDDLE caught up to use late in the day. We packed up our gear, short essentials, and palletized it for highline transfer. BIDDLE came alongside MONOGAHELA just before sunset to commence alongside replenishment at sea (RAS), and our pallets were sent over. The master plan was for us to be heloed over in the morning, to embark on the planned flagship for our staff.

Fast forward: It’s about 5 AM local time, and I’m one watch. BIDDLE calls us frantically on one of the circuits, reporting white smoke in one of her shaft alleys. Shaft Ally is the last space in the ship where the shafting from the ships turbines then penetrates the hull, heading out to the struts and the propeller. White smoke in there is a bad thing. The response is for the Engineering Officer of the Watch (EOOW) to direct the shaft be stopped ASAP, and then to lock the shaft in place. The net reslut of this action is like dropping a large sea anchor, for the blades of the affected prop are being pulled almost sideways thru the water and not turning. BIDDLE’s max speed in this condition was several knots slower than we had to go to arrive in the Med on time to reported to COMSIXTHFLT. I notified the Commodore and the Ops Boss. Planning went into affect for what to do until BIDDLE caught up, since our records and publications were over there.

The affect on the Staff was not too bad professionally, as the MONOGAHELA’s library would have publications we could use, but the biggest impact was the Chief Staff Officer, Bill Nurthen, has also send his clothes over, except for a single change of them. Well, you can imagine his angst, but also how were were able to play on this to get under his skin for the rest of the cruise….

Later that morning, the OPREP (operational report) from the BIDDLE made it’s way to use, and listed the cause of the loss of all oil in the main shaft bearing as sabotage. Someone had uncapped the drain line, and big machinery, which in many cases actually relies on the oil as a medium to carry heat off the movig parts as much as it being a lubricant, does stuff like get hot and the glows red, and then breaks or catches on fire.

Shortly after this message came out, the Battle Group Staff lawyer sent one back, letting the BIDDLE know the reported was to read, or any subsequent reports to list sabotage as “malicious destruction.” That’s the term used when it’s one of your own people who causes the damage.

(back to the story)
So was sailed by late afternoon, the SARATOGA, SCOTT, JACK WILLIAMs, BROWN, CAPODANNO and MONOGAHELA all in formation. We left in strict EMCOM “A.” That means no, I mean no, radio communications and all radars were turned off. Once clear of the harbor, our orders were to proceed NNE at top speed in EMCOM. We didn’t even know were we were going, except a point south of the Arabian peninsula.

More to come…