Terrorists have targeted our ships in port and provoked warnings from our government about scuba-diver attacks. In wardrooms there have been heated discussions about how to respond to divers in the water close to our ships. The Navy has the schools to train divers, and I know there are personnel willing to become divers. Given the force protection issues facing the Navy today, it seems absurd that we do not have Navy divers on board every surface ship.
Consider this scenario: a ship will get under way from a remote but busy harbor at 0700. It is 0330 and one of the topside watch standers thinks he sees something in the water, but he is not sure. There is no explosive ordnance disposal detachment to call, and the officer of the deck has no divers available to search the hull. The harbor police force of the host nation only has people available to increase patrols around the ship. What is the plan of action? Should the ship postpone getting under way until divers can be dispatched to inspect the hull? Or should the ship depart without knowing if there is a limpet mine next to the shaft seal?
If there were qualified scuba divers on board they could look for anything suspicious on the hull. I am not proposing that divers engage in underwater knife fights with terrorists or that they try to remove limpet mines attached to the hull. I am talking about using divers for searches.
An added benefit to having divers on board is the ability for ships to perform some of their own maintenance as well as offer assistance to vessels in distress. Divers could clear debris, check seals, affix patches, and investigate hull noises. The submarine fleet adopted this idea many years ago. In fact, submarines do not get under way without scuba divers on board.
Where would the Navy get enough sailors, in good enough shape to make it through Dive School, for every surface ship in the fleet? There already are search-and-rescue swimmers on board nearly every ship in the Navy. They are in great physical condition and they like the water. I bet many of these swimmers would jump at the chance to go to Dive School.
What would the training and equipment cost? Next to the financial and tactical benefits, the costs are virtually nothing. It costs a submarine about $20,000 to outfit a four-man dive team. The five-week school could be taught at Pearl Harbor, Panama City in Florida, or anywhere in the world for that matter. The equipment required would occupy the space of a small foul-weather-gear locker.
But would it be dangerous? I have been in electronics maintenance since 1983, and I have been a qualified Navy scuba diver since 1993. Bounce diving in the mine field off the coast of Charleston is much safer than taking high-voltage measurements on the plate of a power amplifier in a two-million-watt transmitter.
Force protection always will be an issue with the Navy, whether in an asymmetrical conflict with al Qaeda terrorists or in a conventional war with another superpower. The Navy needs to be able to access and protect the hulls of its ships just as much as it needs to protect their topsides. The need for divers on surface ships is obvious. When I became a chief many years ago, the question no longer was "Why can't we do it?" but "How can we do it?"
Chief Warrant Officer Monghan is the electronics material officer on board the Reuben Jones (FFG-57).