Within an age-old mariner’s prayer is a petition to “preserve us from the dangers of the sea, and the violence of the enemy.” The role of a higher power notwithstanding, sailors have long known the best way to ensure that they will “return in safety to enjoy the blessings of the land” is through effective damage control.
Throughout history, damage control has saved many ships that might have—or indeed should have—been lost (see “Fighting for Survival”). A vessel’s survival may someday depend on the training and abilities of her crew to keep their ship afloat, however dire the situation may be. That is why damage control is every sailor’s responsibility—no matter his or her rating or paygrade.
Fighting fires and maintaining watertight integrity (i.e., controlling flooding) are the two major elements of damage control. Aiding sailors in these vital tasks is an arsenal of specialized tools. Much of this equipment is stowed in repair lockers throughout the ship and includes such things as plugs and patches for ruptured piping and breaches of the hull, materials for shoring and bracing weakened decks and bulkheads, radiological defense equipment, electrical repair kits, and tools for forcible entry such as axes, crowbars, hacksaws, bolt cutters, and oxyacetylene cutting torches. Ship systems such as drainage, communications, fire mains and sprinklers, ventilation, and supplies of fuel, fresh water, and compressed air also are crucial elements in damage control.
An important part of the damage-control battle organization is the repair party. To ensure maximum coverage and to reduce potential personnel losses, repair parties are spread out to key locations throughout the ship. Each repair party has an officer or chief petty officer in charge, a scene leader to supervise all on-scene activities, a phone talker, several messengers, and other people trained and equipped to don the appropriate clothing and equipment used when entering flooded or smoke-filled compartments.
Repair parties generally must be capable of:
- Evaluating and correctly reporting the extent of damage in an area.
- Maintaining watertight integrity by stopping leaks and flooding.Maintaining the ship’s structural integrity by shoring up weakened decks and bulkheads.
- Controlling and extinguishing all types of fires.
- Giving first aid and transporting the injured to battle-dressing stations.
- Detecting, identifying, and measuring the amount of chemical, biological, and/or radiation contamination, as well as carrying out decontamination procedures.
Typical repair parties and teams are organized as follows:
Repair 1—Main-deck repair: Includes a number of boatswain’s mates who are familiar with the winches, capstans, and other equipment found on the ship’s main deck.
Repair 2—Forward repair: Covers the forward third of the ship’s interior spaces.
Repair 3—After repair: Covers the after third of the ship’s interior spaces.
Repair 4—Amidship repair: Covers the middle third of the ship.
Repair 5—Propulsion repair: Covers the engineering spaces of the ship.
Repair 6—Ordnance repair: Includes gunner’s mates, fire-control technicians, and electrician’s mates who are responsible for controlling damage and effecting emergency repairs to the ship’s weapon systems and magazines.
Repair 7—Gallery deck and island structure repair: Used primarily on aircraft carriers and other ship types where needed.
Repair 8—Electronics repair: Primarily includes personnel with ratings in the various electronic specialties.
Because of their special needs, aircraft carriers and ships equipped for helicopter operations also have aviation-fuel repair teams and crash-and-salvage teams for emergencies. Ships that carry large amounts of ordnance also have an explosive ordnance disposal team capable of disarming fuzed weapons and responding to other ordnance-related emergencies.
The ship’s officer responsible for training and preventing and repairing damage is the damage control assistant (DCA), who usually answers directly to the chief engineer. Damage control activities are coordinated from Damage Control Central, a specialized space normally equipped with graphic displays, status boards that help visualize damage and corrective actions in progress, plans of the ship, and diagrams of its systems. These assist the DCA and others in planning, preparing, and directing damage-control efforts.
Realistic, hands-on training helps sailors develop teamwork and to maintain their courage and cool-headedness under pressure when faced with frightening experiences such as having thousands of gallons of water rushing into a compartment or confronting the roar and heat of flames just a few feet away while fighting a fuel fire. This training is vital when disaster strikes—and it can strike at any time.
On 14 April 1988, the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) hit a mine in the Persian Gulf. Its 250 pounds of TNT exploded, snapping the Roberts’ keel, blowing a 25-foot hole in the hull, and sending a fireball through the ship’s interior and up through her stack. “Every analysis that has ever been done on [that] mine strike has said that ship should have been on the bottom of the ocean,” one admiral noted. “But it’s not, because of the men serving on that ship, on that day.”
The Roberts’ highly trained crew was able to save their ship—one of the countless examples where damage control worked and a ship survived to fight another day.
