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Athens has formally become the American Navy’s largest homeport in Europe.
A navy-to-navy accord signed in Athens, will enable about 6,500 Navy men and their families to make Greece their home for the next five years.
The 12-page text of the "technical arrangement” released by the Greek government, names Athens as the homeport[1] of one of the U. S. Sixth Fleet’s two carrier task forces in the Mediterranean, consisting of six destroyers that have been stationed here since September 1972, and an aircraft carrier that is due in late 1973 or early 1974. The text underlined in its preamble that the facilities would "serve the purposes of the North Atlantic Alliance;” they were not "a naval operational base or naval dockyard.”
Already the first phase of the agreement has been completed with the arrival of the destroyer squadron, the Fleet support office, and about 1,200 dependents. Further negotiations are expected for the second phase, which will bring 2,150 more dependents and 4,500 men from the carrier and her air wing.
Critics of the agreement see it as a substantial American commitment to the military-backed Greek government, which suspended democratic rule in Greece more than five years ago.
The issue reached a climax during the U. S. election campaign when Republican leaders insisted Greece was needed as a springboard for American defense of Israel, but the Athens government balked, saying it would never allow Greece to be used in any agression against the Arabs.
Under Secretary Vyron Stamatopou- los, chief spokesman for the Greek government, answered the argument that since the Sixth Fleet was not a NATO- integrated unit, American warships could use their homeports in Greece for such non-NATO missions as the defense of Israel. The Sixth Fleet, he said, had a "vital role” in NATO defense as a stand-by force; in case of war it would support NATO’s land operations. "How can we refuse it facilities?” he asked.
He made it clear that while the U. S. warships would give the Greek authorities full particulars of their movements under the agreement, there was no question of a Greek veto on American Navy missions outside Greek waters.
Stamatopoulos also dismissed the argument that by having homeports in Greece, the U. S. Navy lent support to the Greek government "If the Americans want to cancel the agreement we are ready to call it off,” he said. "We did not ask for homeports. They did.”
To critics who say that the continued presence of American warships near this capital of 2.5 million would make it a Soviet nuclear target, he said: "The ships would not stay in port in case of war. Besides, the task forces of the Sixth Fleet do not, in principle, operate in closed seas such as the Aegean.”
Under the agreement, the six Ameri
can destroyers, which will be joined later by the 14,980-ton hospital ship USS Sanctuary (AH-17) will be "periodically moored” in Eleusis, the industrial port 13 miles west of Athens.
A "relocatable pier” with plug-in facilities (water, power, steam, phones, and sewers) for the destroyers will be attached to a leased strip of land, 82 feet by 525 feet, that will be fenced in and where warehouses will be built.
A separate amendment will be needed for the aircraft carrier after her base in the Athens area has been determined in further talks.
Navy’s Antisubmarine Force And Second Fleet Are Merged
(Annapolis Evening Capital,
6 February 1973)
The Navy has announced a merger of its Norfolk-based U. S. Second Fleet and the Atlantic Fleet Antisubmarine Warfare Force.
Spokesmen also said that three amphibious commands at Little Creek will be eliminated 15 February 1973 as part of the Navy’s streamlining effort. These organizations are Naval Special Warfare Group Two, the Amphibious Operations Support Command, and Inshore Undersea Warfare Group Two.
The unified Second Fleet and Atlantic Antisubmarine Warfare Force will be commanded by Vice Admiral John G. Finneran, U. S. Navy, who assumed the dual role on 1 February 1973. The Navy said at that time, however, that Finneran’s joint command was not related to a merger.
Navy spokesmen said that the unified organization will retain the Second Fleet title. The antisubmarine warfare label apparently will be dropped.
"The merger will provide considerable savings by eliminating 20 officer and 61 enlisted billets, while establishing a consolidated command capable of planning and executing all currently assigned national and international functions,” said a statement released by Atlantic Fleet headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. Also, the statement said, ", . . a significant advantage of the merger is the concentration of leadership and direction of all striking and antisubmarine warfare forces in one operational commander.”
The Second Fleet command is a temporary resting place for many East Coast warships that are destined for Mediterranean duty with the U. S. Sixth Fleet. The organization guards eastern sea approaches to the United States.
The Second Fleet commander also is in charge of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s striking fleet, which nor
mally includes ships from Great Britain as well as from the United States. The force sometimes is augmented by vessels from Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Portugal.
Finneran is expected to retain his NATO role under terms of the Second Fleet merger. Spokesmen said that a rear admiral soon will be assigned to assist him with the enlarged organization.
Navy Will Mothball 34 Ships From The Atlantic And Pacific
(The Seattle Post-Intelligencer,
2 February 1973)
The Pentagon’s decision to lay up 34 Navy ships during the 1974 Fiscal Year in an effort to operate within budgetary constraints will affect 26 Atlantic Fleet vessels, but only 11 of these are likely to be decommissioned, a Fleet spokesman said.
The spokesman said the other eight vessels affected by the decision will come from the Pacific Fleet.
Largest ships scheduled for decommissioning in the Pacific are the guided- missile cruiser USS Providence (CLG-6) and the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14). Both are based in San Diego.
Hill Unit Cites Permissiveness In Incidents On Navy Carriers
(The Washington Post, 24 January 1973)
The chairman of a special House subcommittee that investigated racial disturbances on board two Navy aircraft carriers charged that Navy "permissiveness” encouraged the protests by seamen.
Representative Floyd V. Hicks (Dem., Wash.) said his three-member House Armed Services subcommittee found no instances of racial discrimination that could have justified the black-white brawl on board the USS Kitty Hawk (CVA-63), on 12 October 1972 or the 3-4 November 1972 sit-in on the USS Constellation (CVA-64).
McKAY
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31 photos * Battle maps Bibliog. • Index • $9.95
From Ironclads to Dreadnoughts
THE BATTLESHIP ERA
By PETER PADFIELD
From the first French ironclad frigates in 1858 to the last shots fired by the U.S. battleship Mississippi’s 14-inch guns in 1944, here is the whole history of the world’s big fighting ships, their development, their armor, and their battles.
Summing up the subcommittee’s
Soviet Aircraft Carrier—This is an artist’s conception of the new Russian aircraft carrier presently under construction at the Nikolayev Nosenko shipyard in the Black Sea. She is expected to displace more than 45,000 tons and will be more than 900 feet long. Note the angled deck, the missile launchers forward of the island, and the gun mounts forward of the angled deck. In the background is a Krivak-class missile destroyer.
findings after a series of closed hearings, Hicks said in a statement that "the riot on the Kitty Hawk consisted of unprovoked assaults by a very few men, most of whom were of below-average mental capacity, most of whom had been aboard for less than one year and all of whom were black.”
He called the Constellation sit-in "the result of a carefully orchestrated demonstration of passive resistance” fostered by 20 to 25 blacks, who encouraged other black sailors to believe that white racism was prevalent in the Navy and especially on board the Constellation.
Hicks reviewed the subcommittee’s findings in a statement in the Congressional Record. The subcommittee’s formal report—approved unanimously by Hicks and Representatives W. C. (Dan) Daniel (Dem., Va.) and Alexander Pirnie (Rep., N.Y.)—is to be made public.
Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, U. S. Navy, who testified before the subcommittee on 20 November 1972, has denied that "permissiveness” exists in the Navy. Several black sailors awaiting special courts- martial for the violence on board the Kitty Hawk, subsequently charged at a press conference in San Diego that "unwritten orders” directed against blacks promoted unrest on board the Kitty Hawk.
Hicks said, however, that the subcommittee failed to find "any instances of institutional discrimination on the part of the Navy toward any group of persons, majority or minority.”
Hicks said the subcommittee did find, by contrast, that "permissiveness . . . exists in the Navy today.” In the Constellation, he said, "we believe the procedures utilized by higher authority to negotiate with Constellation’s dissidents and, eventually, to appease them by acquiescing in their demands v to be detrimental to the best interest of the Navy.”
The subcommittee was also critical of what it called the "town meeting” approach to enforcement of valid orders. "The Navy must be controlled by command, not demand,” Hicks said.
In the Kitty Hawk, he said the subcommittee found that "blacks, armed with chains, wrenches, bars, broomsticks, and perhaps other instruments,
Notebook 117
went marauding through sections of the ship seeking out white personnel for senseless beating with their fists and with those instruments they had seized upon as weapons. The result was extremely serious injury to three men and lesser injury requiring medical treatment of many more, including some blacks.” No testimony was taken from sailors charged in the Kitty Hawk brawl. Hicks said they refused to testify "despite the fact that the hearing was closed and the testimony would have remained secret pending their trials.”
The subcommittee noted disapprovingly that the sailors in the Constellation sit-in were finally charged "only for the minor disciplinary infraction of six hours’ unauthorized absence.”
Twenty-one blacks were accused of assault and riot after the Kitty Hawk incident. A white sailor was similarly charged. Of the five blacks whose cases have been disposed of thus far, four have been found guilty of infractions ranging from "illegal apprehension” to assault and riot. One has been acquitted.
Navy’s Radio Project May Shift From Wisconsin To Texas Site
(Anthony Ripley in The New York Times, 13 January 1973)
Secretary of Defense Melvin L. Laird has directed the Navy to concentrate on Texas as the prime site for the possible construction of Project Sanguine, a controversial billion-dollar communications system.
In an announcement, Laird said experiments would continue for the next few years in his home state of Wisconsin, where an experimental transmitter has been built above ground near Clam Lake in the Chequamegon National Forest. But, he said, no further development or construction would be done in Wisconsin, once the Navy’s prime site.
The project had been opposed by scientists, environmentalists, tourist groups, farmers, and other groups in the state. They attacked it as unneeded, technically awkward and unsound environmentally.
Sanguine is a back-up system for
present methods of radio communication with nuclear submarines, surface ships, and airplanes.
It is designed to operate in the "extremely low frequency” ranges of 45 to 75-cycles-per-second. Signals would be sent from a series of antennas buried six feet below ground, each 14 miles long. They would be set in huge patterns covering 6,000 to 25,000 square miles.
The project has been 14 years in its research and development stages at a cost of more than $50-million.
Because of the low frequency ranges, Navy submarines could only receive messages, not answer them. They would need immense sources of power and huge antennas to transmit answers. Also, because of the wave lengths, voice communication is impossible. Only slow coded messages could be sent.
Although the Defense Department has not confirmed it, the system would presumably be used to send a Presidential order to Polaris-type submarines to fire nuclear weapons in case of war.
The Navy has been attracted to the idea because the long-wave-length signals penetrate deeply into the sea and can reach a submerged, fast-running submarine.
The Navy reported that in December, a test signal was sent from Clam Lake, in north central Wisconsin, to the nuclear attack submarine USS Tinosa (SSN-606). The Navy would not say where the submarine had been.
The Navy argues that its present
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submarine communications are subject to enemy attack. The Sanguine system, with multiple transmitters buried over a wide area, would have greater survivability under an attack.
A final decision on whether to go ahead with the project, the announcement said, will not be made until 1976.
The Texas Panhandle region and parts of New York State have been mentioned as possible Sanguine sites.
Israel Building Missile-boats; First Is Launched In February
(The New York Times, 5 February 1973)
A fleet of warships, described as "the forerunners of the next generation of missile-boats” is being built for the Israeli Navy in a Haifa shipyard.
The commander of the navy, Rear Admiral Benyamin Telem, said that the first vessel, the Reshef would be launched 19 February, and that an undisclosed number of additional craft would be delivered to the navy this year and in 1974.
The missile-boats are the first to be built in Israel. Their design was based on French-built craft now in the fleet, but Admiral Telem said they were bigger and better.
The French impounded the craft in Cherbourg in 1967, after President Charles de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on the first day of the six-day Middle East war. In 1969, the Israelis spirited them out of France.
The naval chief declined to discuss operational matters, but observers said that the new craft might be the Israeli answer to Arab threats to interfere with Israeli shipping through Bab el Mandeb, the strait connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
The firepower of the new Israeli craft was said to be far greater than that of the French-built boats and the electronic firing-control systems far more advanced. However, the French boat is faster. A major advantage of the Israeli craft, according to Admiral Telem, is longer range.
The naval commander said that the French embargo had been a factor in the decision to build ships in Israel. "We insisted upon minimizing our dependence on foreign production and foreign
aid,” he said. Foreign participation in designing, developing, and constructing the vessels and the weapons system was minimal, he added.
The admiral estimated the cost at $5-million a boat with engines and navigation equipment, and SlO-million including the weapons systems.
Israel prefers small craft, the commander said, adding that "we don’t see any reason in our zone of operation to go into ships bigger than 400 or 500 tons.” "We would like to have smaller ships, but more of them,” Admiral Telem said. "We believe missiles are much more effective as long-range weapons than any modern gun on a bigger ship.” He, too, noted the cost element, and pointed out that a missile boat required a crew of 45, compared with 200 for a destroyer.
The Israeli craft, of 415 tons displacement and 190.4 feet long, is 42.6 feet longer and 185 tons heavier than the French boat. The armament includes two 76-mm. antiaircraft guns, seven Gabriel missiles, four depth charges, and machine guns.
The engines are German Maybach diesels, almost the same as those in the French-built boats. The speed will be about 32 knots.
Spanish Shipbuilding Industry Is Third Largest In The World
(Tom Mayor of Copley News Service in the San Pedro News-Pi lot,
21 December 1972)
The Spanish shipbuilding industry, which only a few years ago was limited to the production of small vessels for the domestic fishing fleet, has now grown to become the third largest in the world. Only Japan and Sweden outrank Spain in construction tonnage.
In 1971, for the first time, the country’s 39 shipyards—located in nearly every major mainland port and in the Canary and Balearic Islands—delivered more than one million deadweight tons to buyers throughout the world.
\
U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1973
According to the Institute Nacional de Industrial (INI), 1972 deliveries will top 1.2 million tons. Orders now in hand, INI says, will earn for Spain more than $2 billion in foreign exchange by 1975.
SitRep: Distaff Corps
Whether or not viewed with complete equanimity by some saltier Navy types who may be prone to share, still, a sense of unease regarding the presence of women in an environment long- regarded to be man’s domain, the record continues to manifest increasing progress in the general acceptance of the idea that, within the Navy, a woman’s place is not limited to the homeport.
Crew-women of the USS Sanctuary (AH-17), participating in the standard course of training at the Treasure Island fire fighting school, have earned the approval of their instructors in proving themselves equally qualified in answering to emergency problems at sea. (See Picture 1.)
In an entirely literal sense, the sky Would indeed appear to be the limit for the likes of Lieutenant (j.g.) Judith Neuffer, U. S. Navy, the first woman recipient of orders to flight school at Pensacola. Lieutenant (j.g.) Neuffer, (Picture 2.) with Navy Secretary John Warner and Vice Admiral Maurice Weisner, U. S. Navy, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, is one of eight women selected to train in a test program, established for developing equal opportunities throughout the Service.
With her appointment to the position of Assistant Chief of Staff for Ad- tninistration/Commanding Officer, Enlisted Personnel, of the U. S. Naval Advisory Group, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, Commander Elizabeth Barrett, U. S. Navy, became the first senior woman officer to serve *n Vietnam, and also the first woman officer to assume a command billet in the U. S. Navy in a combat zone. (See Picture 3.)
Properly and attractively rounding °ut the picture of increased participation °f women in activities once regarded as unlikely and not useful, is the evidence that Camella Jones has become the first Navy woman to wear the rating of Constructionman (CN). So well did Camella learn her trade that, without the benefit of CN "A” school, she is licensed to operate more equipment— ■ududing bulldozers, road graders, and large cranes—than an "A” school graduate. (See Picture 4.)
Changes in Ships’ Status
Compiled by Lieutenant Commander J. B. Finkelstein, U. S. Navy 1-31 January 1973
Ships Launched: Date:
SSN-683 Parc he 1/13/73
Ships Decommissioned: Date:
agf-1 Valcour 1/15/73
Ships Transferred
to Naval Reserve Force: Date:
dd-825 Carpenter
1 Jan. 1973
1 Jan. 1973
1 Jan. 1973 1 Jan. 1973 1 Jan. 1973
U. S. Naval Shore Establishment— Facilities Established:
Director, Navy Office of Information, Atlanta Branch, Atlanta, Ga.
Director, Navy Office of Information, Dallas Branch, Dallas, Tex.
Naval Regional Medical Center, Oakland, Calif.
Naval Regional Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pa. Naval Regional Medical Center, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
U. S. Navy Shore Establishment—
Facilities Modified:
Pass-Down-The-Line Notes
22 Jan. 1973 Change location of Superintendent, Dependents Education Office, Atlantic, Washington, D.C. to Pensacola, Fla.
U. S. Naval Shore Establishment—
Facilities Disestablished:
1 Jan. 1973 Inspector of Naval Material, Petroleum Products, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles
1 Jan. 1973 Inspector of Naval Material, Petroleum Products, Middle East Area
Errata:
U. S. Navy Shore Establishment—
Facilities Modified:
I Jul. 1972 Redesignate Naval Scientific and Technical Intelligence Center, Washington, D.C. and Naval Reconnaissance and Technical Support Center, Washington, D.C. to Naval Intelligence Support Center, Washington, D.C.
Soviet Mediterranean Force Is Reduced By One-half
(New York News, 27 January 1973) The Soviet naval force in the Mediterranean Sea has been cut in half, North Atlantic Treaty Organization officials said. They quoted intelligence reports presented to the NATO council that showed the Soviet Union had about 40 ships in the Mediterranean, compared to 80 at the peak period of September 1970, during the fighting in Jordan.
Department Of Defense Delays Building Of Sea Control Ship
(The New York Times, 1 January 1973)
The Defense Department has postponed for at least a year the building of a new class of mini-aircraft carrier, called the sea control ship, a pet program of the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., U. S. Navy, informed military sources said.
The sources said Deputy Defense Secretary Kenneth Rush sent the program back to the Navy on the ground of inadequate planning, and cut all but $10-million of the $190-million requested by the Navy for the program during the 1974 Fiscal Year beginning 30 June 1973.
The action will delay the program for
The U. S. Mint and the U. S. frigate Constellation are offering the Frigate Constellation Congressional Medal— the only Congressional medal ever struck honoring a fighting ship of the U. S. Navy. Each medal is a lifetime admission pass to visit the ship, berthed at a pier at Baltimore, Maryland. The
at least a year, the sources said, and only allow the Navy to continue the preliminary design for the ships.
Admiral Zumwalt has said the 15,000-ton ships would carry 17 short- range jump jets and helicopters, compared with 80 longer-ranged, heavily- armed aircraft that are usually on board one of the large attack carriers.
Contract Awarded For Design Of Navy’s Sea Control Ship
(Baltimore Sun, 29 January 1973)
The Navy has selected National Steel and Shipbuilding Company of San Diego, over four competitors to develop a new class of small aircraft carrier for the protection of U. S. sea lanes.
The Navy awarded National Steel a $7.5 million contract to design the Sea Control Ship (SCS), a favorite program of Admiral Elmo Russell Zumwalt, Jr., U. S. Navy, Chief of Naval Operations.
The Navy also awarded Lockheed Shipbuilding a $1.5 million contract as back-up contractor to allow the Navy, in effect, to look over the shoulder of primary contractor National Steel.
Litton Industries, Todd Shipyards, and Newport News, also bid for the SCS contract, which has a production potential of eight ships worth more than $800 million.
cost of the medals are $10.00, $12.00, or $25.00, depending on size and type of medal. All proceeds are used to complete the restoration of the Constellation. For more information and applications, write Constellation Medal, c/o Equitable Trust Company, Box 400, Baltimore, Maryland 21203.
[1]See G. H. Katzmann, "Fleet Logistic Support: Improvements in Delivery,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, this issue, pp. 118-121.