Part I, Part II, Part III,Part IV, Part V, Part VI,

Part VII, Part IX

So life, the evening of March 24th and wee hours of the 25th were exciting. Quite honestly, it was also the closest I personally ever came to combat during my career, and then it turned out to not even be that at all. In this case, it was the closest I ever came to being connected (directly) to a major international incident.

As the sun rose later on the 25th, at least two of Khadaffi’s Navy ships were transmogrified into mobile targets for the battle force’s SUCAP. Later in the day, I recall a ship’s company sailor poking his head into our watch station area, proudly holding a black and white 8×10 picture of a smoldering NANUCHKA gunboat. He asked if we wanted a copy. I would have loved one, but then I thought back to a story one of my CO’s had told me of a story about pictures.

Gary Voorheis had been at a Wardroom party many years before, at the house of one of the ship’s officers. He told us of being ushered upstairs, where upon he and a few other officers were shown pictures of the USS BELKNAP (CG-26) just after she had collided with the USS KENNEDY (CV-67) in 1975. These were photos taken by the officer, with his own camera, and he had held onto him for several years. Back in “the OLD Navy,” the Navy’s policy was every, yes, you read that right, every picture taken aboard a vessel was Navy property. The common convention was, short of some major situation, no captain bothered to have all photos developed and examined for possible useful content, however, the regulation was in place. In this case, these picture of the post-collision damage fell under this regulation. To shorten the story, shortly after the party, I believe the Naval Investigative Service paid the officer a visit and confiscated the photos, and I recall significant (read career ending) repercussions followed for withholding evidence from the collision investigation board.

In light of that story, and not being certain of the possible classification that may be assigned to the photo of the unlucky gunboat, I declined. About two weeks later, when the stateside mail caught up with us, there were copies of US News and World Report, with the very picture of the flaming evidence on the front cover.

We gave Khadaffi’s boys a big black eye, taking out a couple of SAM radars and at least two gunboats. My understanding is a thrid Nanuchka, with a little brighter skipper, was zig zagging between the ROCKEYEs lofted at him, and while he made it to port, the shrapnel left enough damage behind for the ship to sink pierside from progressive flooding.

The SARATOGA CVBG, taking ADM Jerimiah and the CRUDESGRU EIGHT staff back to the US. Just the CORAL SEA and AMERICA CVBGs remained. My staff transferred from the SARA back to USS BIDDLE (CG-34), and resumed our watches in the staff area in the Combat Information Center. The CORAL SEA CVBG began preps to turn over and OUTCHOP, too. Our last scheduled port visit was Benidorm, Spain (for the USS BIDDLE). On the last day of the port visit, we were informed we had been extended in the Med. That was quite a shock, but, orders are orders.

Side note: While we were involved in this series of operations off Libya, we began to receive mountains of mail from the States, courtesy of Operation Dear Abby. The history of that operation, which continues today, began with a letter from a BIDDLE sailor, even before we had left for the cruise. Early in my blogging days, I discussed the special support we received thru this project.

I also recall one day on watch when ADM Jerimiah was out on the Flag Bridge of SARATOGA, he beagn laughing and called us to come out and “see this.” We pulled the curtain back to see a small commercial jet, which had been chartered by a news crew flying over the CVBG, and an gaggle of different Naval aircraft were all tucking in beside an behind it, trying to get on camera. I suspect that was the time the famous picture, of a crew member of an EA-6B Prowler was holding up the sign “SEND COOKIES” for the camera, that was widely published.

As we headed back to sea, and the planning began to rapidly develop for a Navy strike on Tripoli and Benghazi, one night, the USAF sent a “natiional asset” our way to recon the target areas. The SR-71 flight I blogged about last year, was what I saw, and my post discussed how I found out who the pilot was, LtCol Brian Shul, quite by accident.

Due to time constraints, I’ll edit this post later (most likely tomorrow), to record my view of the events 20 years ago today. Those events were the bombings of Tripoli (actually named Tarabulus by the Libyans) with USAF FB-111s and Benghazi with Navy A-6s. The event was named Operation El Dorado Canyon.

The blogger known as the Southern Air Pirate, now on active duty and part of the GWoT, realizes his father was in the same fight, but, there where I was 20 years ago today….and his dad went “feet dry” with VA-85.

Stay tuned for the details from my view!

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

Part IX

It was the early morning hours of March 25th at this point (around 0200) and there we were, the entire staff and almost all the augmentees, standing there in our watchstation on the Flag Bridge. I believe it was the 07 Level on the carrier’s island. All around us were the nominal things used to stand the watch: Notebooks, pens, pencils, dividers, parallel dividers, magic markers, tactical publications, message boards, and, don’t forget the coffee cups and Coke cans. These things, as some of you readers know, have another, more generic name: Missile Hazards. More on that in a moment.

In theory, the pair of Soviet built OSA missile patrol boats headed towards us “AT HIGH SPEED!” were each loaded with 4 SSN-2 STYX cruise missiles. In new math, that means 8 near supersonic, with a flight profile low to the water, weapons may be announced with the proword “VAMPIRES” any moment. Back to the missile hazards. Steve Nerheim was at one side of the chart table, and I was at the other. I recall I looked at Steve, and he had a wild-eyed look in his eyes, just before (and simultaneously with me) his hand grabbed for the latch on the top drawer of the chart table and proceeded (aided by my hand at the other hand on the other latch) to slam the drawer wide open, whereupon we both yelled “MISSILE HAZARDS!” and began sweeping every loose thing from the chart table top into the drawer. After that we grabbed and stuffed every thing in sight into that drawer, and then got to getting ourselves into battle dress.

The concepts of missile hazards and battle dress are generally introduced to most naval personnel during the endless days of “REFTRA” (refresher training), which used to be held at Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a place more often (and oh, so lovingly) just called “GTMO” (pronounced “git-mo”). The many and varied stories (of the same incidences in some cases) would fill screen after screen after screen on blogs by the hundreds, but almost all of them would mention something about missile hazards or battle dress. Missile hazards, as deemed by common sense, once you get by the fact the GTMO Fleet Training Group (FTG) sailors were “making you do it,” is anything that the force of a close by explosion may be able to impart enough energy into it so as to damage the human contents of the surrounding vicinity of said missile hazard. You come to hate the thought of dealing with the lost point for things like the “left behind” paper clip the FTG guy is holding in your face just before the ship is cleared for getting underway for the day’s training, with that “I just nailed you for one more point off your exercise score, buddy!” look on his face, but after a few weeks, you begin to unconsciously scan your vicinity constantly for loose items. It’s bad enough to get nailed at the beginning of the day, but more irritating when you use some object, such as the dividers to measure something on a chart, and then carelessly put them down on the chart, and, as luck normally has it, right under the nose of the exercise observer, who, once more, smiles and lifts his clip board to make a note about another point off.

That being said, when real, high speed ordnance may be in your future “real soon now,” you immediately recall the laws of physics, and some rudimentary biology that says that coffee cup over there is gonna leave a mark if I leave it sitting on the frame stringer just behind the chart table. It’s sort of like Steve and I, having served in different commands to get where we were, “got religion” on the topic when this scenario presented itself.

Battle dress is the other thing sailors love to hate and do just about anything to justify not reconfiguring their clothing in order to satisfy the little tyrants the FTG guys seem to be. Battle dress amounts to a real fashion statement. Consider the well dressed (for work) sailor, chief or officer (not in the new BDU knock off stuff) with the bottom of the bell bottom or khaki trousers stuffed into their black socks above their shoes, the normally open shirt collar buttoned all the way to the top, and the long sleeves rolled down and the cuffs buttoned. It does look very strange, and, once again, when you consider the purpose, it is something meant to keep the exposed skin to the absolute minimum. In the in most every training scenario, the outfitting also meant scrambling for the locker in the space that held the gas mask bags, each one normally labeled for the crew member it was issued to/fitted for. Picture strange shaped olive green or medium grey footballs with waist straps flying across the space as someone answers up to the name just read off the stenciling. In the late 80’s, we adopted the crew wide issuing of anti-flash gear, which included opera length gloves and a pull over hood, with the open hole for your eyes and nose to be exposed though.

I’ll admit, I missed out completely on the opportunity that most every other service member experiences: The tear gas chamber. I was in GTMO for refresher training in early 1985, while assigned to USS CONOLLY (DD-979). We were going to be import for the weekend, but the Saturday morning schedule had most of the crew set to attend this wonderful opportunity to appreciate the wonders of low level chemical warfare. On Friday evening, they sent us a schedule change that sent us to the base school auditorium instead. Our training involved listening to a Royal Navy LT, who was currently assigned on an exchange tour with Fleet Combat Training Center, Atlantic as a Tactical Action Officer (TAO) course instructor. That assignment was not the basis of his talk that day. He spent several hours talking about his experiences in the Falklands War. He had been the Weapons Officer on one of the destroyers that was hit with and sunk by an Exocet cruise missile. He had been rescued and then was aboard the frigate that had had an Argentinean dumb bomb, unexploded, lodged in the engine room that exploded when the EOD technicians were attempting to safe it. That ship sunk also. As you might imagine, despite the significant exhaustion that GTMO instills, no one was sleeping in the gym that day.

He talked about the effectiveness of anti-flash gear in various parts of the presentation. He said you could tell those who did not like to wear it and had pulled the lower part of the flash hood hole down under their chins. He said when the fireball caused by the unused fuel of the cruise missile ignited and swept through a space, those with exposed skin bore the damage, from surrogate sun burns to significant burns all over their face. He also discussed another physics topic, which was about the property of colors to transmit heat. One ship’s commanding officer had labeled his flash hood with “CO” on black magic marker on the forehead area of the hood. Despite wearing the hood properly, that captain will forever go through life with “CO” burned into his skin, in the same manner that the colored patterns of the kimonos the Japanese women were wearing during the atomic bombs dropped caused their skin to be marked where the darker colors in the fabric patterns was. That part of his story stayed with me to the end of may sea time.

While the brief moments of time were passing in that watch station, with everyone kicking into GTMO muscle memory mode, the SARATOGA Surface module crew ordered the airborne SUCAP (Surface Combat Action Patrol) to intercept the OSA boats. We had the ASUW circuit up in one of our many speakers and I remember the section A-6 lead calling asking if the ship was sure there were OSA boats out there, for the area where he was sent did have a ship, but he said it “had a lot of lights on it.” That reminded me that before the cruise, I remember there had been a push to make sure the Air Wing A-6 assets where equipped with TRAM pods. These “pods” were multi-function sensors mounted beneath the radome of the aircraft, and they were articulated to allow the aircrew to steer the cameras and laser designators around. Included in the sensors was low light level television. The section leader of the SUCAP, despite the urging of the ASUW talker to engage the targets with Harpoon, spent a few extra moments using the available tools to ensure he was doing the right thing. What he reported back was he was breaking off the attack because it wasn’t OSA boats, but a cruise liner, with all sorts of deck lights on, and it was doing 16 knots, not 42. Moral of the story: Make sure everyone has their heads in the game, and you’ll not make stupid mistakes that cause nations to have to apologize to most of the citizens of the world for engaging a “white” (neutral) target in the fog of war.

And this ends my recollection of the events of March 24th and 25th in 1986, in the central Ionian Sea, aboard the flagship for Battle Force ZULU. It is not, however, the end of the tale of the beginning of the offensive phase of the GWoT.

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

Part IX

The operations had been intense. Standing Port and Starboard watches in pairs, it was usually LCDR Al McCollum and I. Al was a P-3C ATACCO guy, and I had spent my earlier years “driving” ships. For two decision makers running 9 ships, all the ASW related air assets from three carriers and all the helo equipped “small boys,” and then all the shore based airplanes out of Rota and Sigonella kept us pretty busy.

We had a lot of work up time, and at our prior sea tours, a pretty good bit of ASW work. This was different. For the first thing, there was no way to beg, borrow, steal, or sneak a peek at a schedule of events (SOE) for the “bad guys.” Now the “bad guys” were not some our our guys, or allied guys. They were the real deal with a twist on top of it. Twist: The Soviets had subs in the Med, and the Libyans had subs in the Med. Why was that sigificant you ask? Well, the Libyans had purchased Foxtrot class diesel subs from the Soviet Union.

Guess what the Soviets had deployed to the Med during this episode? You got it, Foxtrots….So, since there is potentiall now “daytime” when you are doing ASW, meaning you can’t hang back until the sun rises to get a visual to confirm your other sensor information, if a subsurface contact, that had the acoustic and other characteristics was dtected in a threatening posture, would an order to engage bring on WWIII with the Soviets, or would we be the heros? Thankfully, we never got to find out.

It had been a long day, Mar 24th, 1986, punctuated by some fun in the late afternoon. Khadiffi had two SA-5 missiles at our Combat Air Patrol (CAP) F-14s flying over the Gulf of Sidra. This fell under that magical definition of “hostile act” in the Roles of Engagement that every warrior longs for, as the response that follows is solidly supported. Shooting back on “hostile intent” is a lot stickier. So, the “SAM! SAM! Vicinity SURT!” calls fill the net. The strange thing is the SA-5, being a semi-active guided missile, needs a separate tracking radar to be diriecting energy at the target, thet the missile receivers pick up and fly to. The “illuminator” radar signal wasn’t detected, indicating the missiles had been fired in a purely ballistic mode, and therefore had a snowballs chance of hitting a target, unless the pilot was dumb enough to fly into the missile’s path. Our were not. They banked clear of the area, and moments later, as I recall, AGM-88 HARM Missiles were fired from the rails of the waiting A-7 Corsair IIs, that had been trolling along below the search radar horizon of the SAM sites. Oh, yes, the HARMs did their job quite nicely, taking out the search radars.

So Khadaffi now had his “money shot” for his Arab brothers, showing how he took on the great Satan, with out the risk of actually taking out any US military assets, which had the demonstrated potential of leaving us in a quandry over how to respond. I recall debating with CDR SMith, the CCDG-8 Intel Officer and ROE Officer, if that firing truly constituted a hostile act, since the missiles technically couldn’t have hit anything. He assured me it was a hostile act.

From WDBASE:

On March 24, six SA-5s were launched from the new missile base at Surt against American aircraft. None was hit, however, because the SA-5, with a range of 240 kilometers, could threaten high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft over the Gulf of Sidra but was relatively ineffective against high-performance jet fighters. Subsequently, the missile site was put out of action by carrier-based A-6 Intruders firing High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs), that homed in on the Libyans’ radar guidance signals. A second strike followed the next day to knock out a replacement radar unit. Although Soviet technicians were believed to be present to oversee the installation and operation of the SA-5 batteries, none was reported injured in the exchanges.

At the same time, a French-built Combattante-class missile attack craft was destroyed when it approached United States Navy ships protecting the aircraft carriers. The Libyan vessel was hit by two Harpoon missiles launched from an A-7 Corsair aircraft

I disagree. The SAMs didn’t hit our planes because they didn’t have radar signals to guide on. Also, about 2000 (8 PM) that evening, one of the A-6 Intruders found a Libyan La Combatante class patrol gunboat sailing north of Tripoli (not an A-7, the call sign of the spotting aircraft was in the 600 series (602 I think), which would have been one of the A-6 squadrons). We had the Surface Combat Air Patrol (SUCAP) radio circuit patch up to our watch station and heard the report. The PG was steaming along like it didn’t have a care in the world, and I suspect they were not alerted to the fact that US forces had been engaged that afternoon. Anyhow, the ASUW radio talker asked what load 602 had aboard, and the response was “ROCKEYE.” ^02 was ordered to “Take the La Combattante.” and acknowledged the order. We waited several minutes, the net was silent, when finally the ASUWC takler asked for a “BDA” (battle damage assessment). 602 came back and said “we got them with Harpoon!” The next comment was “But you had ROCKEYE” “6XX had Harpoon, so we had them do it.” we figured 602 was a nugget crew and were afraid of a close in pass against a gunboat with a surface to air capabillity, so they got on Sqaudron Common and asked if anyone up had Harpoons loaded. Next over the net was direction to use ROCKEYE, and then look for survivors. The two attack sank the La Combattane. This was the first combat use of Harpoon.

About an hour later, we heard that the F-14 in CAP Station 5 was yelling about taking “Triple A” fire (anti-aircraft artillery). The USS YORKTOWN (CG-48) hustled off to the west to fix the problem, and reported a very high speed target inbound. They also fired Harpoons at the target, but there were no indications of any targets being hit. Post combat analysis showed the fog of war may have settled in and the AN/SPY-1 system may have had a spurious signal display, as the “target” was showing altitude and much faster speed than the La Combattante could acheive. For the next few days, O mulled over the sequence of events and went up and pulled out our plots from that evening. I back plotted CAP Station 5 from the operational tasking of that night and the area where the A-6s had attacked the La Combattante several hours earlier and CAP Station 5 we very close together. I suspect the aircrew saw the aftermath of the sinking (maybe not fully sunk by that time) ship and thought the fires and secondary explosions were AAA.

My watch was to end at midnight, but as was the custom of the Commodore, things got crazy, and the relief by LCDR Steve Neheim didn’t happen until almost 0200. Just as I was preparing to leave the watchstation and get some sleep. The USS SARATOGA’s CDC reported “two high speed contact, suspected OSA IIs, approaching at high speed from the north west!”

That report, when asked to be confirmed and was reported as “two OSA boats, inbound at 42 kts NW!” will make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and the muscle memory of many trips to GTMO for refresher training comes back in a flash…More to follow…it’s late and I’m already a day late getting this out. Stay tuned!

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

Part IX

And then there were three CVBGs in the Mediterranean. Gathered for the purpose to “show the flag,” we would specifically challenge Qhadaffi’s claim to sovereignty over the waters and air space in the Gulf of Sidra. Freedom of Navigation (“FON”) operations at their finest.

To bring in a few important background details, we had conducted FON Ops in late January, twice in February (a third one was aborted and we stayed moored/anchored in Italian ports), and then again in March, we went to sea in force a few times. I figured we’d send some surface ships (that, for the uninitiated, comprises all ships except aircraft carriers (which belong to AIRLANT/PAC) and submarine tenders (those belong to the submarine community) smartly into the Gulf, have them press south at best speed, and make a show of force. I was wrong. We actually tip-toed down there on a very nasty, cloud covered, windy, clod day, complete with sea so high, the Libyan Navy would have barely been able to make headway to meet and greet us. I know the USS YORKTOWN (CG-48) was one of the vessels tasked to go, and I recall the USS CARON (DD-970) might have been the other. As I sat listening to the situation/position reports coming back on the radio, it was obvious we could have made our show of force and been completely unopposed, yet it was equally clear the two powerful warships were not to cross the “Line of Death” without specific direction from “Zulu Alpha” (the call sign for the battle force commander.

In the operations building up to the shoot ‘em up, I subconsciously was schooled in the major factor that wins conflicts, a lesson I would learn later consciously at Naval War College: It’s all about logistics, logistics, and yep, you guessed it….more logistics. At the time, the force structure planned for a single CVBG in the Med, one in the Indian Ocean, and I’m not sure how many the Pacific Fleet kept roving the seas on deployment. In any case, the shore support in the Med was designed and stocked for one CVBG, and here we were with three within a few weeks, arriving in theater. The names of the many ships escape me, but here are the ones I can recall:

USS CORAL SEA (CV-43), USS AMERICA (CV-), USS SARATOGA (CV-60), USS YORKTOWN (CG-48), USS BIDDLE (CG-34), USS WAINWRIGHT (CG-28), USS CARON (DD-970)*, USS SCOTT (DDG-996), USS JACK WILLIAMS (FFG-24), USS DEWERT (FFG-45), USS AINSWORTH (FF-10), USS JESSE L BROWN (FF-10), USS CAPADANNO (FF-10), USS GARCIA (FF-1040), USS MONOGHELA (AO-178), and USS IWO JIMA (LPH-7)*. (* indicates that these may not have been there, as this is being done from raw recollection on my part).

I do know that my staff, as “ZULU XRAY” (ASW Commander), had nine ships primarily under our command, which included all the FF units at least. We also had all ASW related resources for the entire theater under our control, which included the shore based VP squadrons with P-3C Orion Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA). Those assets flew from NAS Rota, Spain and NAS Sigonella, Italy.

Anyhow, back at the ranch, the supply system was now having to provide beans, bullets, black oil and spare parts to three times the assets, which also were sailing/flying a very aggressive schedule. The warehouse ashore in the Med were emptying out quickly. The fuel stockpiles were taking a hit as well. Each day, in the early evening, each ship submitted a daily SITREP message to the chain of command. One of the paragraphs in the format listed the present percentage of fuel aboard. At our level, we had a standard figure of how many barrels (42 gallons) per day each type of ship would burn. This set of stats was further subdivided into a burn rate based on the type of ops the ship was engaged in. One rate for at sea steaming, another for import steaming (running the boilers to operate the electrical power generation and auxiliaries) and a third burn rate for “Cold Iron” or with the main propulsion plant shut down. We totaled up the data and forwarded it to the battle force staff. Decisions on when and who would sail were based on the fuel calculations.

In between our jaunts to sea to demonstrate our resolve, we had to anchor/berth somewhere. Due to Qhadffi’s threats to the European countries, only Italy would allow us to enter their waters. They were a solid ally, even when SCUD missiles were lobbed at a small Italian island south west of Sicily, in retribution for their cooperation with us. I got to see a lot more of Naples than I wanted in those days.

ASW operations for the force were a stretching experience. As a TACDESRON staff, we had the Commodore, the Chief Staff Officer, four watch officers (we stood the watch in pairs), then a radioman (RM) and operations specialist (OS) senior chiefs rounded out our normal compliment of tactical watchstanders. We had “borrowed” a few OS1s and 2s from the BROWN and CAPODANNO for the cruise, and they helped keep up with the radio comms and plotting. We stood watches in “Port and Starboard” (2 shifts), in six hour watch cycles.

Two HP-9020 JOTS computers, fed by Link-14 teletype from the SARATOGA’s comm. Center allowed us to track our assigned unit’s locations in near real time (a few minute time lag, when things worked, and the ships had their Link 14 systems properly patched). More often than not, things were not running as planned, due to the multitude of switches and components involved, so were tended to have the junior OSs on the radio circuits, calling for updated positions, so we had an accurate picture of force location.

In addition to the JOTS computers, we tracked the units on a piece of tracing paper, laid over a chart of the central Med. Due to the force dispersion from close to the entrance to the Suez Canal to west of Sicily at some times, it was the only way to be able to have a “big picture” to scan and make decisions upon. It took constant attention, mostly from OSCS(SW) Jim Koch and RMCS(SW) Rumbaugh, to keep the Link 14 feed patched to us.

Stay tuned for more “sea stories”….

Jumping, rappeling, hoisting…it all looks fun!

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

Part IX

Please pardon the skipped month, but if you have read the other three parts, I’m now going to just shift to the events of 20 years ago. I’ll work on “Life Between the Catapults, or What I Did on My Indian Ocean Cruise” will come later.

When you last read about the SARATOGA/CCDG-8 Battle Group, we had received orders to head for the Suez Canal. That we did. It was still Janaury, and we made our way into the Red Sea and to Port Suez in full EMCOM at top speed that conditions allowed.

We made the 24 hour long northern transit and headed for the Ionian Sea (the central part of the Mediterranean Ocean, to join with the CORAL SEA/CCG-2 Battle Group. With the join up, Admiral David Jerimiah (COMCRUDESGRU 8) was named Commander, Battle Force Zulu. With this entery into the Med, the meetings aboard SARATOGA (CV-60) between Adm Jerimiah and Admiral Frank Kelso, COMSIXTHFLT, began as well.

Muammar Khadaffi had once more proclaimed his claim to the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan territorial waters (first made in 1973), and told the world he would defend his territory. Thus began what we called “OVL” (pronounced “oval”) for “Operations in the Vicinity of Libya.”

I can’t recall all the dates associated with the Ops in late January, but off we went, two CVBGs worth of assets, to challenge the claims of Khadaffi to the rights to navigate in international waters. It was more than just to drive about in the water, waving the flag, but also to carry the message that President Reagan was ready to muster significant military capability to counter state supported terrorism. In December, 1985, Libyan supported terrorists had bombed discos in Germany, killing several people, to include US service personnel.

This series of operations gave me the opportunity to see the effects of moving large forces around, and the intricacies involved. I was afforded a special seat to this “play,” with my squadron, DESRON 32, being assigned as the Battle Force ASW Commander. When we moved aboard the SARATOGA per CINCPACFLT doctrine (The ASW Commander for the battle group will be embarked on the CV) the previous December, we were berthed with Adm Jerimiah’s staff (I roomed with the Intelligence Officer) and we ate in the Admiral’s Mess. The good side of this was we generally knew most of what was going on from these close arrangements, but the bad side was the CCDG-8 Ops Boss tended to look at us as augmetees to his staff. There were a few discussions over who could task who, but things worked out for the best.

My assignment was the Combat Systems Material Officer, so I had to keep the handle on logistics for the ASW ships, and I regularly interacted with the CCDG-8 logistics guys, so I got a glimpse into the “big picture” regulalry.

On top of all these things, the USS AMERICA Battle Group was also dispatched from stateside to make the Battle Force Zulu a three CV formation. That hadn’t happened since the Vietnam Conflict….

Things got raelly busy, and for the first time for me and many others, the “bad guys” were not the “orange” forces, and there were no umpires, nor back door copies of the enemy’s schedule of events….More on that in the coming posts on this topic.

Side note: The most favored movie for the Admiral (and therefore his staff as well) was “Zulu”, starring Michael Caine.

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.

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…

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

Part IX

I don’t recall the exact date it was, but it was in January 20 years ago, and the location was an island pardise referred to as “DGAR” (pronounced Dee-gar) by the mulitude of airmen and sailors who have had the pleasure of transiting, by ship, sub or plane to the southern reaches of the Indian Ocean in the Chagos Archipeligo. Being south of the equator, it is more than likely responsible for many “Shellbacks” of the various services as well.

I pick up the story a few months late. But to catch up quickly, my travels to DGAR began in Norfolk, VA at the end of Oct, 1985. Sailing with the USS CORAL SEA (CV-43) Battle Group, under the command of Commander Carrier Group TWO. Assigned to the Battle Group was Destroyer Squadron THIRTY TWO, USS BIDDLE (CG-34), USS CAPODANNO (FF-1093), USS JESSE L BROWN (FF-1089), USS JACK WILLIAMS (FFG-24) and USS MONOGAHELA (AO-178), we headed east to the Med to swap out our CV and Group Commander, before heading to the North Arabian Sea. My “boss” was Capt Wes Jordan, Jr, Commodore for DESRON 32, and the Chief Staff Officer was CDR William “Bill” Nurthen. Staff OPS was LCDR Steve Nerheim, LCDR AL McCollum was our token ASW TACCO from the P-3 community to help make sure us “shoes” did ASW right. Much, much more on that later….OSC(SW) Jim Koch was our OPS Assistant, and RMCS(SW) Rumbaugh the Communications Officer. We had a chpalian and an RP (religiuos program specialist), but I can’t recall their names. They were farmed out to the ships of the Battle Group and rarely we with us. YN1 Thorton and a MS1 as the Commodore’s staff rounded out our little “family.”

Our sailing from Norfolk in October had been a wonderfully exciting day, as all our gear had been loaded aboard USS BIDDLE, but during the night before, the deck crew was hoisting a 40′ Utility Boat back aboard when a limit switch failed, allowing the winches to keep running, after the davit arm was fully upright. The result was a bend davit arm. COMNAVSURFLANT directed BIDDLE to remain inport and effect repairs, as our deployment would require anchoring out a lot, and the boat davits would be used extensively.

The Commodore issued orders to find another flagship. Looking to the north, we could see the CORAL SEA already moving from the piers. USS MONOGAHELA was still moored at her berth, so we yelled for help from the BIDDLE’s crew, and got our gear to the Oiler….

Off we go, but more background to come. Anyhow, on or about this date, 20 years in the past, I was headed towards the brow, so I could say I had a beer on Diego Garcia, after being on duty the first day inport, having just arrived from Singapore, where most of our Battle Group had spent Christmas. I heard “All Hands Prepare to Get Underway!” on the USS SARATOGA’s 1MC system…..