There is justifiable concern over surface ship overhauls. Why should this three- month period in a ship’s three-year cycle be viewed with reluctance and even distaste by ship’s force? Why should the “crash program” so often encountered toward the end of overhauls be an accepted way of shipyard life? Why should a commanding officer even be concerned over thoughts of a marginally acceptable finished product?
Even in those instances in which a shipyard commander and a ship’s commanding officer express mutual satisfaction over the outcome, one might seriously reflect upon the unrealistic workload, ineffectual liaison, crises to meet cardinal dates, and the inescapable friction between shipyard and ship’s force, as well as their ironic dependence upon each other. Why should commanding officers have the feeling of being “back to the wall” on the wording of a job order, or feel that they are running a transient barracks during the overhaul. The question must surely be raised, “Is there not a more effective and acceptable way to conduct an overhaul?”
This essay is concerned exclusively with the conduct of surface ship overhauls, and particularly with the overhauls performed on the smaller surface types.
In the opening remarks of a handout prepared for all ships about to undergo regular overhaul entitled, “Make the Most of Your Overhaul,” one of our shipyard commanders states, “One of the most difficult times for a ship’s company is the shipyard regular overhaul. It is foreign to shipboard routine. It is the greatest upheaval the ship goes through from both material and personnel viewpoint. Yet, despite all of this, it is almost the most important and critical part of a ship’s life, particularly in peacetime.” Meditating upon the last sentence, let us discuss attitudes.
The attitude of the type commander can only be one of insistence upon attaining the best possible overhaul for his ships. Simply put, he must consistently want to make his ships well. With the purse strings so tight, and becoming tighter every day, it is extremely difficult to maintain such an all-encompassing approach to regular overhauls. There is little hope that the financial picture will brighten, so the emphasis must shift to getting the most for the money. In the case of many of our older surface ships and in consideration of the high cost of work in naval shipyards, this is not the easiest problem in the world to master. What is vitally needed is a continuous monitoring by the type commander of each of his ships undergoing regular overhaul. His representative should meet with the ship’s commanding officer and ship superintendent on the ship at least once a week to discuss all work in progress. The type commander should be represented at all scheduling conferences and material conferences held during the overhaul. Additionally, he should tour the ship as frequently as possible. Close monitoring is essential when the price tag on a ship obviously is going higher than anticipated. Seeing firsthand how the money is being spent, and why the expense is considered necessary, allows the type commander and commanding officer to work closely together toward their common goal during overhaul—to make the ship well. The desire to realize a well-planned and executed overhaul must be considered paramount, and it is here that the limited money we have should be spent. Restricted availabilities should be authorized only for essential and urgent repairs.
The commanding officer of a small surface ship undergoing overhaul is faced with an imposing task. His is the ultimate responsibility for the successful completion of the yard period. For the junior skipper, the job is tougher. He must realize from the outset that, in his efforts to reach his objectives with the shipyard, he is being cast in the role of the amateur—the pay scales suggest this—against a team of professionals. His attitude must be one of determination—determination to keep completely informed on all aspects of work in progress. He must insist on absolute thoroughness of follow-through by all of his officers. They must be on top of all work within their respective departments; on a small ship, this necessitates peak performance by the few officers under his command. If sufficient information is not being made available by the shipyard, the commanding officer must make known his displeasure.
Many commanding officers and executive officers have experienced frustration at their inability to realize any semblance of personnel stability during the yard period. Too often our personnel distributors feel that the ship that is torn apart is the ship to raid. As executive officer of a small ship of 80 men, I was the recipient of eight sets of message or speedletter-type orders during a two-month period in the shipyard. Obviously, these orders had been generated merely to fill someone else’s sudden “need.” In several instances, rapid turnaround on deployments were involved. The deleterious effect on morale and retention of this type of transfer could be the subject of another full discussion. But let us concentrate on the ship’s personnel stability during overhaul. It is difficult indeed to look about on a small ship and find a petty officer who is not filling a fairly big pair of shoes. Any officer who really wants to stay on top of his work looks to his petty officers for the detailed day-to-day help he needs. The sudden transfer of a leading engineman at the height of a yard period will hurt the ship. There will be a resultant lapse in close, co-ordinated supervision, at least until someone can pick up the slack. An engineman who has played the primary role in planning and monitoring a major engine job should not be pulled away until he has followed that job through to completion. It should be stated here that I am not opposing the execution of a standard set of transfer orders that develop as a consequence of the ordered workings of a program such as Seavey. Most of us are satisfied with a smoothly-functioning Seavey that will rotate our men in an orderly fashion, and every command can and must plan on transfers of this sort. But I am strongly opposed to the apparently accepted distribution plan that considers ships in overhaul as prime targets for personnel needs.
Usually, when one confronts a personnel distributor with a protest against such transfers, he receives the party line statement, “Well, we do not normally move people in this manner, but there are times when the needs of the service ...” I submit that this is in error in the case of ships undergoing regular overhaul. Sudden transfers are the rule rather than the exception, and when you are in a small ship in an area abounding in small ships, the ratio of sudden transfers to “normal” transfers can become downright frightening.
Just as the personnel distributor should not say, “Well, that ship isn’t operating, so let’s take the people from her,” so should the staff operations officer refrain from stating, “This ship is in overhaul, so let’s tap her for the inspecting parties.” The conduct of operational readiness inspections, administrative inspections, and pre-deployment inspections should not be imposed upon the personnel in ships undergoing overhaul, particularly the small ships. For them, the talent, both officers and enlisted, that must be brought into play, cannot be spared even for a two-day period. To conduct, for example, an ORI properly, a small ship must place its entire wardroom and most key petty officers on the ship being inspected. They do not belong on another ship, they belong on their own, particularly when these inspections are scheduled in close proximity to dock trials, sea trials, or other cardinal dates. If inspections are scheduled at these key times, it reflects a lack of liaison or lack of interest on the part of the schedulers.
The present conduct of surface ship overhauls involves far too much interrelationship and interdependence of ship’s force and yard personnel, and this state of affairs is not helping our ships or our men. Our approach should be: ship’s force plans; yard conducts. In line with this, the following three eliminations are recommended:
The requirement for the ship formally to submit an integrated ship’s force work list prior to the commencement of overhaul, the ship-to-shop feature, and fire watches.
The submission of a work list to the type commander and the naval shipyard is the first step towards the creation of some nasty interrelationship problems during the later stages of the overhaul, when the pointed phrase keeps recurring, “the ship is going to handle that part of the job.” It is safe to say that this list, prepared by the ship three months before arrival in the yard, suffers from a pronounced tendency to be overly ambitious. It looks impressive at that point in time, but very quickly proves to be the small ship’s downfall. It takes a really battle-hardened shipyard veteran to look ahead and realistically predict where his man hours will be lost. Unless this look is taken, ship’s force work lists become totally unrealistic and a mere paperwork exercise.
There is a personnel demoralization aspect in attempting to pursue an overloaded work schedule. This, I fear, seldom receives much thought. As the tempo of yard activity escalates toward its inevitable “slightly-less-than- fever-pitch” during the waning days of the overhaul, the ship’s force will be called upon and expected to work along with the shipyard in order to complete all jobs. Indeed, they will be forced to work steadily, simply because of the interrelationship problem on so many jobs mentioned earlier. A naval shipyard is organized and equipped to do this, a small surface ship is not. A shipyard can throw shift after shift of workers on a ship to complete an overhaul on time. A small ship has only one group of sailors to offer, and working around the clock burns them out at a most rapid rate. Think how demoralizing it must be for a fireman to be performing the same work as a union-minded shipyard worker on weekend overtime when the latter may well be drawing ten times as much money for his efforts as our fireman. And we ask why we lose people.
The second proposed elimination is the ship-to-shop feature. If a piece of work is considered important enough to be undertaken during the shipyard overhaul, it should be the shipyard’s job all the way, and not in part. A ship only penalizes herself when she incorporates the seemingly generous gesture to “ship-to-shop” an item in order to sell the repair request. Many an unforeseen snag will suddenly appear to delay delivery of a piece of gear to the shop. If ship’s force has agreed to pick up a finished product from the shop and install it in the ship prior to testing by yard personnel, the problem is magnified. A sailor does the shipyard no favor through ship-to-shop, for transporting components to the working area is a function for which the shipyard is organized and equipped. Once again, in all probability, the commanding officer is biting off a bit more than he can chew in an effort to sell that job. Eliminate ship-to-shop and the commanding officer will not have to listen to the shipyard’s oft-used remark of convenience, “Ship’s force didn’t do their part.”
Lastly, let us eliminate, or at least reduce, the greatest single drain on small ship manpower—fire watches. The meaningless ship’s force work lists referred to previously are a direct outgrowth of fire watch requirements, requirements that tend to be demanding, and which invariably are inconsistent. It is this inconsistency feature which makes daily workload planning practically impossible. It is not unusual for a small ship having a “working” deck force of 12 seamen, to be called upon to furnish 18 fire watches per day for two weeks. Attempting to pursue any of your own work under such conditions is indeed frustrating. Too often, men standing fire watches are gainfully employed for only a small fraction of the time during which their services are needed. We have created an intolerable situation in which the sailor and the ship can only lose. When the tempo of yard activity picks up, more hot work is performed, more fire watches are demanded, less ship’s force work is accomplished, and sadly enough, this occurs precisely at a time when ship’s personnel should also be producing at an accelerated pace alongside their shipyard counterparts to ensure completion on time.
We must face the fact that fire watches are a tremendously wasteful drain on a small ship, and since the ship being overhauled must be our primary concern, the following recommendation is offered: Assuming the naval shipyard is not ready to pick up the slack in this area, the type commander should establish and maintain a seaman/fire- man fire watch pool to be available to ships in regular overhaul. This pool could be filled with excess non-rated personnel being temporarily controlled by the type commander prior to being ordered to ships, by transient personnel, and perhaps even by brig details.
Increased and sincere concern must be focused on quality assurance during surface ship overhauls. Quality assurance implies that we are realizing the most and the best for our money. I question whether quality assurance is not a forgotten term on a 20- year-old surface ship. During a recently completed two-month overhaul on just such a ship, the author witnessed but a single visit to the ship by a member of the shipyard’s quality control division for the purpose of checking some newly installed piping joints. It was a meager effort, considering the $135,000 expended on piping renewal alone in this ship. One finds an impressive price tag on the quality control job order for a submarine overhaul. The figure may be even higher for the “sub-safe” program. There appears to be no similar organized and concerted effort to make quality assurance a vital factor for the surface ship. Indeed, this is something that every shipyard should vigorously pursue, and something that each ship being overhauled should expect to receive. True quality assurance runs even deeper: The occasion should never arise where a ship’s commanding officer finds himself “back-to- the-wall” on the wording of a yard job order, unable to rectify obviously unacceptable work by the yard, simply because the job order did not specifically call for it. To cite an example, suppose a considerable number of ventilation sections, which had been removed from an engineroom as interference in the way of approved work, were allowed to be exposed on the pier during a heavy rain prior to being reinstalled, with subsequent damage to the exterior insulation. Would not a quality-oriented shop foreman step in and stop reinstallation of the damaged sections until they were repaired, regardless of the wording of a job order? When a shipyard reacts positively to a situation such as this, their quality assurance efforts have some meaning.
A few words must be said concerning the almost inevitable “crash program” to finish on time. No matter how bright the prospects appear at the outset of the overhaul, for some reason the last few days are disorganized and confused. Suddenly, all jobs must be brought to a conclusion—some sort of a conclusion— and it is not uncommon to find a shipboard space clogged with workers from five or six different shops, all scrambling for top billing. Such a mad pace can have serious consequences. No chief engineer can possibly maintain effective supervision of his engineering plant overhaul, when he discovers to his dismay that machinery is being buttoned- up faster than his petty officers can check the condition of reassembled material. If, for example, the responsible department head is not aware of the condition of a reinstalled main bearing, he should immediately wave the red flag in front of his commanding officer and request a halt to the proceedings. A shipyard’s rush to complete a ship by a certain date raises the question, “Why do we place so much importance on a date when we are in the business of making ships well?” Unless a ship is immediately booked for an extended deployment, it seems rather meaningless to place so much emphasis on a completion date. It is probably a source of pride to a shipyard to say that they completed an overhaul by the prescribed date, but the rush job should never become an accepted part of that effort.
There is one positive step that can be taken to ease the pain for ship’s force during the overhaul—move officers and men off the ship. It is demoralizing to live on board a ship during the height of a shipyard overhaul; indeed, it might even be considered unhealthy and unsafe. Yet, surface ship after surface ship does just that. The living conditions in some of our older surface ships are primitive enough, but when the living spaces are hemmed in by work, cut off from decent ventilation, and even torn up themselves, living conditions become so bad that we should not ask any sailor to endure them.
A submarine commences an overhaul, and in short order the YR, or some other form of living barge is alongside. This is a matter of routine, and submariners take it for granted. In defense of this, one hears the retort that no one can live on a submarine when heavy work is in progress. No one need justify such a move, it is the proper and sensible thing to do. But what makes a destroyer or salvage ship any more habitable than a submarine during overhaul? The same brand of sailor occupies both.
More YRs, or similar type craft, should be made available in all major shipyard areas, for surface types as well as submarines, and surface type commanders should pursue a vigorous effort to make some sort of alternate floating living conditions available to all of their ships facing regular overhaul. The word “floating” is indicated to point up the fact that shoreside barracks are not the answer. Barracks provide one thing—a place to sleep; beyond that, they are sorely lacking. An executive officer places his crew in the naval station barracks and he then looks around for a compartment master-at-arms in answer to a base request, he releases several men for the remainder of the yard period to serve as compartment cleaners, and he begins searching for men possessing a government driver’s license, since the entire crew will have to be shuttled to and from the barracks and mess hall. Messing on the naval station means that several mess cooks will have a new home for a few months. If we are sincere in our efforts to get people off the ship, we must also be concerned with workshop space, office space, and mess space—and none of these may eventually be located in close proximity to the ship. A work study expert would literally tear us apart over the man hours lost in the movement of men from one point to another.
One who has been harassed by such problems, needs only to have a YR available for one yard period to gain a quick appreciation of her usefulness. It takes only two tugs to bring one alongside, and then your complete new home is only a row away. The small ship sailor will find more workshop space than was available on his own ship, and a mess hall that may even be larger than the one he left. A little improvising by the galley crew will produce the same variety of meals that were served in the ship. For a pleasant change, our sailor will find his bunk above the main deck, with windows to bring in fresh air. It is no tribute to our design of surface ships when we speak of this sort of thing as a luxury.
Storage space is seemingly inexhaustible. Any additionable reefers that might be required can be placed on board. There is room for a log room, boatswains’ locker, electrical shop, radio room, quartermaster’s shack, supply office, ship’s office, sick bay, and even a wardroom. The YR goes everywhere with the ship. The crew remains intact, and this is a morale factor that we dare not overlook.
I again submit that our basic approach to the overhaul should be: ship’s force plans; yard conducts. A part of this plan should be an orderly movement off the ship, a move that will assist the yard in following through on its work. We want to live amongst decent surroundings, and the shipyard workers have no particular desire to find us in the way.
Regular overhauls invariably are followed by refresher training, so it is appropriate that we pose the question, “What about training during the shipyard period?” Directives from the type commander spell out the shore-based schools that should be used during this period, but can a small ship realistically do this? No commanding officer desires to see his ship face-to-face with underway training completely without preparation, but given the present set of conditions we have imposed upon the conduct of surface overhauls, he may have no alternative.
Small ships can pursue a fair amount of training, but only if they are not deeply involved in that overly ambitious ship’s force work list, only if they are not expected to work around the clock alongside the shipyard work force, and only if they are not faced with inconsistent fire watch requirements. If a YR is available, the problem of conducting on-the-job and shipboard classroom training is somewhat eased. But, for the small ship, it will still be a meager effort. If training is emphasized, ship’s force work and monitoring of shipyard work will, of necessity, suffer. Perhaps we need to adopt the approach that we have no better training to offer than that gained by a fireman when he is called upon to rebuild a pump or grind a valve. If we could sufficiently detach our personnel from their interrelationship with shipyard work, we might be able to follow through on some modest ship’s force work projects from which we would indeed gain beneficial and meaningful on-the-job training.
It appears our emphasis is wrongly placed. We tend to evaluate the refresher training period in terms of how well the ship scored, rather than how much worthwhile training she received. This viewpoint implies the assumption that the ship embarked on the training period in a reasonably advanced state of training. Unless a ship fresh out of overhaul has had a minimum of three uninterrupted weeks to train on her own, this assumption is ridiculous.
Any productive training that is accomplished during the overhaul should be considered frosting on the cake. The so-called “16-pound package” usually delivered by the local fleet training group during the height of the overhaul, should be eliminated. If the ship has not been able to conduct any effective training up to this point, implementation of this package during the high-pressure days leading to that final sea trial will be a frustrating experience. Indeed, the 16-pound package is a better candidate for Operation Scrap than for a ship intent upon orderly completion of an overhaul. Our attitude toward underway training must shift from an emphasis on grade to a sincere concern for worthwhile training offered and realized. The minimum three-week shakedown and training period between the final day of overhaul and the first day of refresher training should be consistently scheduled and made available whenever possible, by both fleet and type commanders.
One very important point remains to be considered, and this is habitability. It does not quite fit into any of the categories covered, perhaps because it does, indeed, stand alone. Unfortunately, habitability profits little from being set apart, for it is usually ignored.
We never seem to have time for habitability. It is constantly caught in the crossfire between insufficient funds and lack of interest. It would appear that the only time habitability improvements are even given cursory consideration is during the regular overhaul, but then only if any reserve remains after the slicing of the money pie—a distinctly dim possibility. While we profess to be keenly aware of the urgent need to improve living conditions in our ships for our sailors, we invariably fall short when it is time to produce.
There are some things we cannot do to improve the lot of a sailor, but we can make an earnest effort to raise him one step above the primitive living conditions all-too-common in our older surface ships. If retention of good men means as much as we officially state, then it is imperative that habitability be included in the shipyard routine job order booklet. The recommendation has been advanced that we pull back from the extreme interrelationship between ship’s force and shipyard workers in the conduct of routine overhaul work. If the shipyard were to follow through completely on all of the work items that should appropriately come under their cognizance, ship’s company would be in a position to tackle habitability—and they should receive encouragement from above to do just that.
There is a tremendous source of pride in the realization of a ship’s force project that constituted a substantial improvement in habitability. We ask and expect our men to work around the clock to keep their ship on the move during the other 33 months of the cycle. During a three-month overhaul we must be willing to grant them the opportunity to make their own life on board a little better.
The shipyard overhaul apparently means different things to different people. What about making ships well? It is time to put “first things first.” The period between overhauls grows longer, and the money grows shorter. To keep our 20-year-old surface veterans on the move, we must indeed worry about making ships well.