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We Need Leaders, Not Technocrats Are Helicopter Warriors Overlooked?
A Few Unreasonable Men
The War of Words
Solving the Uniform Morass
Sweaters—Winter Warfare Designators
A New Target for the Submarine Force
Saving Carrier Aviation—1949 Style
Triad or Dyad?
The Carriers Are the Wrong Targets
A Defense Strategy That Works
West European and NATO Navies
Surface Warfare Is Still Eating Its Young
LCAC Medevac Considerations
The Flip Side of Rickover
The Sinking of the Marine Electric
ENTER THE FORUM
We welcome brief comments on material published in the Proceedings and also brief discussion items on topics of naval, maritime, or military interest for possible publication on these pages. A primary purpose of the Proceedings is to provide a place where ideas of importance to the Sea Services can be exchanged. The Institute pays an honorarium to the author of each comment or discussion item published in the Proceedings.
“We Need Leaders, Not Technocrats”
(Sec J. H. McFadden, pp. 84—86, January 1990;
K. Montor, p. 72, February 1990; T. L.
Johnson, A. F. Campbell, and L. R. Wass, pp.
24-26, April 1990 Proceedings)
Midshipman Fourth Class Christopher Graves, U. S. Navy-Hats off to Lieutenant McFadden! His gutsy essay attacks a pertinent issue concerning the modern military. For too long, the technocrats have blindly cranked out mechanical beings from our learning institutions, leaving the leaders behind. If this problem is not addressed soon, we will all suffer.
The Naval Academy recently announced a plan to reduce group III majors (the humanities) to an insignificant percentage of the class, moving toward a more technically oriented curriculum. This may be fine for officers looking at 20-year careers in the nuclear navy, but it is detrimental to the rest of our diversified forces. The plan ignores the leadership requirements of a well-run navy, in order to stock the nuclear power specialty.
The Navy currently has some of the best-trained petty officers in the world. On most ships or submarines, the chief petty officer is familiar with every component, fore and aft. This knowledge comes through a combination of demanding schooling and years of hands-on experience. Perhaps the best example of modern training opportunities is the Nuclear Power Program, which has more than a dozen full-scale reactors, along with extensive laboratories, for training petty officers. As a result, the enlisted navy maintains a level of technical competence that is rivaled by only a handful of navies throughout the world.
Technocrats recognize the competence of their sailors but they maintain that officers need to be technically oriented so that they can supervise their subordinates. This is incorrect. Officers do have to monitor the work of the members of their commands because the officers are ultimately responsible. They do not, however, need a bachelor of science degree to do so. Ask any officer, from the engineering spaces to the combat information center, how much of any college technical major is applied in the field. The answer may be surprising to some: practically none. Officers get their knowledge of the various stations from
the same source as the petty officers— applied schooling and hands-on experience.
An officer is a leader by definition. Officers must organize, direct, discipline, and, most importantly, think.
Group I (technical) curricula ignore thinking, and to some extent they numb it. Over-dependence on systems and technical solutions to solve problems removes the senses from the objective. Because one has proved in lab that a given mechanism works as described, one believes it will function the same at all times. With this attitude, the technocrat will rely less on personal decisionmaking and more on machines.
Technology majors are not hopeless. There are specific advantages in having a technical education as compared to one centered on the humanities. The need for technocrats in the Navy, however, has been greatly exaggerated by our hierarchy. We have plenty of capable petty officers in the fleet to fulfill the technical requirements of today. We need a balanced officer corps composed of leaders. This will be accomplished only with more open-minded leadership from above.
Captain A. C. Bernard, U.S. Navy, Commanding Officer, USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN-730) (Gold)—I read Lieutenant McFadden’s article after my Chief of the Boat showed me the picture on page 85 of two other midshipmen and myself working on the Naval Academy’s subcritical nuclear reactor. I am compelled to respond.
In the quarter century since that photograph was taken, one thing I have learned is that a technical education does not produce a technocrat any more than a liberal arts education produces a leader. I am sure that the entry-level engineer at a well-run aircraft manufacturing company has every bit as much chance of rising to t e top of his firm as the young person with a humanities degree working in the credit department has of reaching the top ot his major retail company. Hard work, uck, and the general maturing process of life will dictate the level of leadership to which each of these people will rise.
The problem Mr. McFadden fails to recognize is this: the modem Navy is about pipes, valves, and steam. It is about diesel generators, gas turbines, jet engines, and nuclear power plants. It is about computer hardware, applications programs, and data processing. It is about ship and aircraft indication and control systems. It is about guns, missiles, weapons systems, tactics, and people. For many officers, especially in the later years of their careers, the Navy is about systems design and acquisition, the defense budgeting process, and manpower allocation.
The technically educated naval officer will be in far better shape to serve in this environment than one versed only in social sciences. In addition, the technically educated junior officer will be in a better position to adapt to new technologies as they come on stream than will his liberal- arts counterpart. Granted, the officer versed in liberal arts may be able to discuss grand strategies, the evolution of current European national boundaries, and maybe even the meaning of the universe. Unfortunately, that is not what the Navy is about.
Two of my favorite magazines are Scientific American and The Economist. With only a bachelor of science degree plus the benefits of the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program as my education foundation, I seem to be able to comprehend about 70% of any given issue of Scientific American and all of The Economist. I suspect that if I had a master’s degree in math from Stanford, I would understand more of Scientific American and no less of The Economist. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be a political scientist, but you do have to be a rocket scientist to be a rocket scientist.
The world we live in is increasingly a technical one. Japan and West Germany are outstripping the rest of the world in growth and importance because of their technical and scientific advances. In both countries, scientists and engineers are often leaders of the corporate society. On the other hand, Great Britain, the home of arguably the world’s finest liberal arts universities, whose ruling class never quite recognized good engineers as much more than glorified laborers, struggles to keep up.
Sandwiched in between is the United States, where corporate America has adopted Lieutenant McFadden’s thesis with a vengeance. Once known as the land of Yankee ingenuity, we now install bean counters as CEOs, pay them obscene salaries, and, since they don’t know the first thing about the product they make, watch them turn gold into dross. Likewise, instead of producing something of value, too many of our best and brightest, armed with Ivy League liberal arts degrees, become investment bankers and lawyers doing leveraged buyouts and suing each other.
The education path proposed by Lieutenant McFadden is contrary to what Americans across the country are finally beginning to recognize. At all levels of our educational system, math and sciences need greater emphasis if our country is to remain a world leader. The foundation of a naval officer’s education must be math, science, and engineering. Foreign language and a good knowledge of history and writing skills are important, but only peripherally at the entry level.
Our future naval officers must be more scientifically and technically educated, not less—especially during their undergraduate studies. In my opinion, all midshipmen at the Naval Academy and in NROTC units should be required to complete an engineering, science, or mathematics major if they have the intelligence to do so. Anything less is not in the best interest of the Navy, the country, or the taxpayers who are footing the bill.
If Naval Academy and NROTC midshipmen are allowed to pick their own majors most would opt for nontechnical courses. Why? Do they really want to be learned men of letters? No. They choose a nontechnical curriculum because it’s easier to get through. I’m sorry, but it’s true. I have never heard of anyone shifting from a history major to mechanical engineering because of grade problems. The reverse happens frequently.
Retired Navy Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale and former Secretary of the Navy James Webb are both fine men and their concern for ethics and morality are justified. The trouble is, I rather think our sense of values and moral standards are set by about age ten, and all the talking in the world at the college level won’t change a thing.
“Are Helicopter Warriors
Overlooked?”
(See G. Y. Clark, pp. 92-94, February 1990;
M. D. Phillips, p. 14, April 1990 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander J. William Cupp, U.S. Navy—Excuse me, but is Captain Clark serious? I almost could not believe that Proceedings would lend credibility to such an outlandish proposal by allowing it to appear in print. But then I reasoned that part of the mission of the Naval Institute is to elicit reader’s responses, and I suppose that the more radical the first article, the more responses you expect to receive. Well, now you have mine.
I practically went into shock when I read that “post-command HSL (light helicopter antisubmarine squadron) commanding officers should have the opportunity to command frigates, destroyers, and cruisers.” Now, let me get this straight. According to Captain Clark, “the XO tour is part of the screening process for the surface community, assisting in evaluating executive skills required to manage and lead large numbers of people.” Since helicopter aviators prove their skills in this regard during a sue-
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cessful command tour, they are then qualified to step into the commanding officer’s billet and exercise complete authority on board those ships where they have “all of their operational experience.”
Excuse me, but in my past ten years in the surface warfare community, I think I
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have learned a great deal more than how to lead people. There are many technical aspects involved in running a combatant. Why can someone so easily presume that what it takes black-shoe officers 15 years of dedicated professionalism to acquire, aviators can pick up, offhandedly, in their spare time underway? Growing a
surface warfare commanding officer consists of a great deal more than the officer- of-the-deck, tactical-action-officer, and command-qualification exams, which the aviator “can [complete] with relative ease” during a single sea tour.
The notion that “many high-quality [aviator] warriors are bypassed in favor of lesser-quality [surface warfare] officers” when choosing commanding officers for ships of the line is downright insulting. And the statement that “this problem will worsen as the Navy expands and the shrinking number of eligibles in those anointed warfare specialties reach the level of captain” is erroneous. Whose Navy is Captain Clark talking about? Mine is getting smaller; recently I was detached from sea duty and sent ashore early as a result of the decommissioning of the Joseph Strauss (DDG-16). Between the Brooke (FFG-1) and the Garcia (FF-1040) classes, the surface warfare community lost 16 combatants and 16 billets for commanding officers between 1987-88, and by the time the Charles F. Adams (DDG-2) and Farragut (DDG-37) classes finish decommissioning within the next three years, another 35 will have disappeared. As things stand now, my contemporaries and I are beginning to look around for the ships that we can command when our turns come—and Captain Clark wants to dilute this further by taking these billets away in favor of the aviation community?
Let us, for a moment, reverse the argument and see if it makes any better sense. How many rotary-wing pilots sincerely believe that surface warfare officers with 18 years’ experience driving ships are competently qualified to command a LAMPS squadron? I’ve been exposed to LAMPS helicopters in all ships that I’ve served—so doesn’t that teach me everything I need to know about scheduling maintenance, rotating pilots, ordering parts, and everything necessary to keep the squadron functional? Who says you have to be a pilot to command an air squadron? This reasoning is just as logical as Captain Clark’s.
Let us suppose that his idea is implemented. An easily overlooked point will wreak havoc on the whole scheme. The aviators will take command of their frigates and destroyers sometime between their 19th and 21st years of commissioned service. In other words, all of the aviator commanding officers of surface ships will be a good three to four years and almost one full pay grade senior to their fellow surface warfare commanding officers on similar platforms. In the long run, surface warfare officers would be looking at a career path in which they
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make command, only to be the junior commanding officers in every formation, even though the surface officers are the ones still in the parent warfare specialty.
One hopes that the leaders at the Naval Military Personnel Command exercise better judgment and more prudence than the Naval Institute did by publishing Captain Clark’s proposal.
A Few Unreasonable Men
Captain Bryce A. Thompson, U.S.Navy— Early in his tenure, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney was tasked by the President in National Security Review 11 to de
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velop a plan to: implement the Packard Commission recommendations fully, improve the performance of the defense acquisition system substantially, and manage the Department of Defense and defense resources more effectively. In a letter dated 12 June 1989, Secretary Cheney provided his Defense Management Report (DMR) to the President. This plan was approved, essentially in toto, for immediate implementation.
Last October, Secretary of the Navy Lawrence Garrett submitted an innovative plan for implementing the DMR provisions. Secretary Garrett’s plan— widely considered to be the most far-
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reaching of all the service plans— addresses four fundamental issues for initial attention: streamline secretariat oversight of the acquisition system; establish new program executive officers and reorganize the systems commands; improve the acquisition team; and improve ethics training. Clearly, these actions focus on some key deficiencies underlying the currently ponderous and ineffective acquisition processes. But developing the plan is easy; changing things will be infinitely tougher.
Sworn in on 12 March 1990 as the Navy’s new Assistant Secretary for Research, Development and Acquisition, Gerald A. Cann immediately launched a vigorous program to create a new order for executing the Navy’s acquisition and material management business. In essence, he is initiating what could be considered the first steps in a Navy acquisition reformation. Secretary Cann is considered to be well qualified. But while he personally may be up to the task, is his team ready for the challenge?
The primary force to reckon with is resistance to change. Fifty years of entrenched acquisition culture has clearly created tremendous momentum that will reverse only if “compelled . . . by forces impressed upon it.” Who will create these forces and keep them applied until the process is steady on a new course?
Then there are the well-intentioned purists who equate safety, effectiveness, capability, goodness, and even the American way” with doing things by the Military Specifications book. Those who view shortcuts and other departures from the book as heresy are another significant force to be dealt with. It only takes the negative publicity of one gun turret explosion or an inadvertent missile firing, in which any shortcut was taken, to stimulate overwhelming public pressures to do everything by the book. We can no longer afford to do everything by the Military Specifications book. The answer is to make the Military Specification process more flexible and responsive to the fleet s real—not perceived—needs and to apply the process where it is needed.
Secretary Cann cannot achieve his objective alone. He will need a cadre of technically astute, hard-nosed management professionals who know the ropes and who won’t have to spend their first year learning Navy jargon, how it does business, and where its skeletons are.
In today s political world, we need “unreasonable” people who will consciously place sailors and taxpayers ahead of careers and politics. But who are these unreasonable people? How do we
identify and recruit them? The most vivid example I can think of is Vice Admiral Jerry O. Tuttle, the Navy’s Director of Space, Command and Control. Admiral Tuttle’s unwavering quest to give sailors near state-of-the-art information management and command-and-control capabilities has become legendary. My assessment of his approach is that he uses the acquisition system when it responds to real fleet needs—and goes around it when it doesn’t. But always, his objective is to give sailors and taxpayers a better deal.
There are other technically proficient, nonpolitical, aggressive, outspoken advocates within our acquisition system who must be singled out and placed on the Navy’s acquisition reformation team. Nothing less will give Secretary Cann the impetus needed to get this badly needed endeavor up and running.
“The War of Words”
(See B. Baker, pp. 35-39, December 1989, G. Williams, p. 28, February 1990 Proceedings)
Joshua Handler, Research Coordinator, Greenpeace Nuclear Free Seas Campaign—Admiral Brent Baker’s analysis of the Navy’s problems in winning the hearts and minds of the fourth estate left me disappointed.
Apparently, Admiral Baker has confused public relations with democracy. The former uses a selective presentation of information to influence public opinion. The latter, however, demands full disclosures by those in positions of public trust. Anything less weakens the foundations of governmental openness and accountability. A strategic rather than complete release of information adds to the public’s cynicism toward the government, and creates suspicion of the Navy.
As Admiral Baker notes, groups such as Greenpeace are having some success with the media. But the press is not paying attention to Greenpeace just because we work hard to get our information out. Nor is the current generation of military reporters quoting Greenpeace because they are less familiar with the military than their predecessors.
The media and public are interested in Greenpeace because we provide information the Navy will not divulge. Through our research, we furnish information on issues of enormous public interest: naval nuclear weapons and nuclear propulsion. After all, Greenpeace, not the U.S. Navy, provided the details about the nuclear accident in which an H-bomb fell off the USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14) near Japan in December 1965. It was Greenpeace and not the Navy that released information about the near burning of nuclear weapons in the Mediterranean on board the USS Belknap (CG-26) in November 1975. And, once again, Greenpeace, not the Navy, has provided comprehensive information about the naval nuclear arsenals of the United States, Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China.
Admiral Baker’s conclusion that the Navy should make available additional, more timely information when the circumstances allow is admirable but misguided. A more timely selective release of self-serving information about a problem on a Soviet submarine will not solve the U.S. Navy’s problem. What would address the public’s lack of belief in the Navy would be a full historic accounting, in this case, of what our Navy and intelligence knows about Soviet submarine accidents as well as those of our own and other allied navies’.
The Navy probably cannot provide the information Greenpeace releases. On the one hand, secrecy and the policy of neither-confirm-nor-deny are too en-
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trenched. On the other, if a complete reporting was made available it would underscore the points Greenpeace is making: naval nuclear weapons are dangerous and unneeded.
Others are now also realizing this is true. Even the retired Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., recently said that naval nuclear arms could be reduced through arms control. The U.S. Navy’s recent removal of most tactical nuclear weapons (something Greenpeace had to publicize, since the Navy would not) further indicates how unnecessary is this class of weapons.
Admiral Baker is wrong in thinking the Navy has trouble getting its message out compared to naval critics. But Admiral Baker is right in that the Navy does have an image problem. Although 1989 was the safest year in recent memory (a fact that an upcoming Greenpeace report verifies), Admiral Carlisle A.H. Trost could not convince the media that this was the case. The reason: CHINFO and Navy public affairs officers are more interested in public relations than open debate and discussion. The result: the Navy has lost credibility among the media and a large segment of the public.
The way to address the image problem is to restore public trust and confidence in the Navy. To do this the Navy needs to be more forthcoming on information on all sorts of topics, not just those the Navy cares to discuss. The Navy also has to play a positive role in issues the public feels are important, like arms control.
The Navy and the Marine Corps are the services of the future, and will play a prominent role in our defense needs— even with a smaller fleet of 450 to 500 ships maximum. But what is more important to the Navy of the future— expeditionary forces (Marines, with surface and limited carrier support), a vibrant research-and-development program, and trained, motivated personnel, or more naval nuclear weapons? Entering into naval nuclear arms control negotiations and canceling planned warhead production could save billions of dollars that could be better spent elsewhere. The public’s perception of the Navy would be much improved if it thought the Navy was openly and responsibly discussing these issues of substance, rather than trying to snow the public with just another PR job.
“Sweaters—Winter Warfare Designators”
(See W.H. Williams, p. 96, February 1990 Proceedings)
Captain Edmund Shimberg, U.S. Naval Reserve. Medical Service Corps (Re
tired) I think it's about time we turn the spotlight on the truth and share,
Navy wide, the real reason for all the confusion. In fact, as this letter will demonstrate, we can now understand the reason for such events and fiascos as the frequent restructuring of groups and units, changing designations of types and
squadrons, altering the system for ship
naming, and many other of the heretofore inexplicable oddities of apparent unnecessary changes in the naval service.
Little known to the Navy at large, a special group exists, a board that meets
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deep within the bowels of Fort Fumble (sometimes called the Pentasomething), which has been tasked with the responsibility of implementing changes. Any kind of changes. Just so they are changes. An earlier Chief of Naval Operations, it seems, decided that a Navy kept on its toes is a more effective Navy. Well, what better way to keep people on their toes than to have them alert and ready for change? So, the Standards, Use, and Reassessment of Function (SURF) Board was born. The composition of the board will be no surprise to anyone. It’s made up of that commanding officer who gave you a poor fitness report; the base commander whose tour was most notable for his close attention to the length of junior officers’ hair; the brother officer whose ability to be regularly selected for promotion always baffled you, given the fact that he never finished a job, antagonized everyone around him, and always looked like an unmade bed; and others of a similar ilk.
Given this knowledge, it’s now easy to understand some of the otherwise inexplicable changes and inconsistencies about which Midshipman Greene and Commander Lewis wrote and we have all been wondering for years. Anytime something totally illogical or irrational comes down from on high, it’s clearly the work of the SURF Board.
“A New Target for the Submarine Force”
(See J.L. Byron, pp. 36-39, January 1990 Proceedings)
“Saving Carrier Aviation—1949 Style”
{See E.P. Stafford, pp. 44-51, January 1990; C.H. Amme and R.D. Hooker, pp. 17-18, April 1990 Proceedings)
“Triad or Dyad?”
(See J.R. Lynch, pp. 61-65, January 1990 Proceedings)
“The Carriers Are the Wrong Targets”
(See R.F. Dunn, pp. 93-94, January 1990 Proceedings)
“A Defense Strategy That Works”
(See F.C. Spinney, pp. 97-99, January 1990 Proceedings)
Captain Benson M. Stein, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve—From reading the January issue of Proceedings, it appears that the naval service is more worried by the potential outbreak of peace between the superpowers than it ever was by the prospect of a nuclear conflict.
The January issue contains no fewer than five articles dealing with the prospect of cuts in the defense budget and three of them are parochial pleas to cut someone else’s budget. The fourth wraps a hero’s mantle on Captain John Crom- melin’s shoulders for sacrificing his career by precipitating the “Admirals Revolt” about the budget cuts during the immediate postwar period. The fifth and most rational is Spinney’s, which tries to get the Defense Department to submit rational budgets that match available resources.
Much of what the authors say is true; nuclear submarines can perform the missions listed; it is possible that a mix of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines and manned bombers can prove an adequate nuclear deterrence force; and aircraft carriers are needed more than ever if the United States reduces its overseas garrisons.
But despite the technical accuracy of each article, all fail to accept that their community should participate in any upcoming defense budget cuts.
The defense budget is going to decline and, if superpower tensions continue to decline, the budget focus will deal more with power projection in the Third World. All warfare communities, except possibly special warfare, will have to continue with fewer resources.
Submariners and aviators claim that their platforms can perform useful missions in low-intensity, conflicts, which is factually correct, but otherwise of little value because their systems are too valuable to risk in a low-intensity conflict.
Nuclear-powered submarines possess amazing capabilities, but their cost to the naval service in both dollars and skilled sailors is staggering. No fleet commander who is even remotely rational would routinely jeopardize these assets in shallow waters when more cost-effective ways to achieve the same objectives are available.
Although we frequently place carriers off hostile shores when there is little risk of enemy retaliation, 1 doubt the Navy is eager to risk its precious carriers against legitimate Third World threats. This was exemplified in the Persian Gulf, when the Navy declined to risk a carrier in its narrow and shallow waters.
Captain Byron states that only a fool would construct submarines solely for low-intensity conflicts and only a bigger fool would consider replacing our current forces. Well, call me a bigger fool, but unless I am mistaken, this is exactly the
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sort of activity all the services need to start considering. They should switch from fighting the coming cuts to working toward ensuring that the cuts are made intelligently. If they fail to do so, I am sure that Congress will be happy to do it for them.
“West European and NATO Navies”
(See N. Friedman, pp. 116-129, March 1990
Proceedings)
Commander Maurice S. Joyce, U.S. Navy—In these times of proposed defense reductions, my former squadron mates in Canada might take exception to Dr. Norman Friedman’s prematurely imposed cut in Canadian Maritime Air Command’s assets. The original purchase of CP-140 Auroras included 18 aircraft, all of which I believe are still in service today, ten years later. The fleet has generally been split with 12 Aurora on the east coast at CFB Greenwood, Nova Scotia, and 6 on the west coast stationed at CFB Comox, British Columbia. Three CP-140A Arcturus were recently ordered for the Arctic patrol mission.
1 recommend the outstanding article on the CP-140 Aurora and its capabilities in a special antisubmarine warfare issue of Proceedings. (See M.S. Joyce, “Dawn of Aurora,” pp. 127-129, March 1980 Proceedings.)
“Surface Warfare Is Still Eating
Its Young”
(See B.G. McGrath, pp. 95-96, January 1990;
G.D. Pash, pp. 19-20, April 1990 Proceedings)
Commander William A. Weronko, U.S. Navy—Lieutenant McGrath’s comments concerning surface warfare eating its young are understandable, seen from his youthful, grass-is-greener perspective. The reality, however, is that surface warfare is alive and well, and clearly on the upswing.
Lieutenant McGrath made the point that most surface warfare officers (SWOs) are frustrated and wish they were something else. I am not familiar with the Navy-wide SWO statistics, but the wardroom on my ship, the USS Wainwright (CG-28), consists of 27 glad-to-be SWOs and two aviation drops who have now seen the light.
Surface warfare encompasses everything from minesweepers and hydrofoils to cruisers and battleships. Clearly, all of surface warfare is not sexy. But aviators have “nonsexy” platforms, too—P-3s, S-3s, and SH-3s, while submariners have nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines. Paperwork is not reduced as it could and should be, but aviators and submariners are immersed in it also.
The Navy pays its people like every organization pays its people—at the minimum level possible to maintain retention and morale. It would be nice to get sea pay early. However, it is not necessary. Aviators can always become airline pilots. Submariners can be happy people, I am sure, though I have never met a happy one. Thus the other warfare specialists must pay their officers more to retain them. The surface warfare community is happy and professional and has good retention. There is no indication that it needs special pay. The community has its problems, but it also has Aegis cruisers and destroyers, the SQS-89 system, new threat upgrade, junior commands, battleships, and cruise missiles.
I have found that surface warfare officers, in fact, do not eat their young. They are as professional, motivated, and proud as officers from the other line communities, if not more so.
“LCAC Medevac Considerations”
(See P.S. Graham, pp. 91-92, February 1990
Proceedings)
C.E. Sandberg—Having participated in the original design of the landing craft air cushion (LCAC), I’ve been following its developments in Proceedings for several years. 1 can’t keep quiet any longer. The LCAC is an absolute wonder. Its possibilities are limited only by imagination and cost.
After the initial run to the beach, a few dedicated LCACs could be instantly converted to medevac craft.
A standard rail-track-ship type container with the interior modified for medical purposes could stand ready for use in the well deck of an amphibious ship. The LCAC could enter the well deck and the container could then be lowered into position, lashed down, and the fueled LCAC could head for the beach again. I believe the LCAC can carry two standard containers.
Lashing these “MASH” units onto the LCAC s deck makes the most sense, because modifying the LCAC’s existing structure would be difficult. The existing troop module (on the port side) is at the maximum volume available, except forward from the line handlers’ station. That space is needed to work the anchor, ramp locks, mooring lines, out of service mast, etc.
Personnel movement on and off the LCAC at sea should be done within a protected environment, such as the well deck of an amphibious ship.
The containers also could be modified for such other purposes as a troop transport, an electronic warfare center, or a mobile command post.
“The Flip Side of Rickover”
(See H.C. Hemond, pp. 42-47, July 1989; P.J.
Early, pp. 22-26, December 1989 Proceedings)
Norman Polmar—I take strong exception to Admiral Early’s statement that “Rick- over’s goal to produce a reliable nuclear propulsion system had to overcome resistance from within the Navy and the submarine force itself,” and “This opposition proved almost too great for one man.”
Rickover had no opposition within the Navy to building a nuclear propulsion system. The start of that system began long before Rickover had even heard of atomic energy. In 1939, the Naval Research Laboratory initiated a nuclear submarine propulsion program; in 1944, Lieutenant General Leslie Groves, head of the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, convened a committee to
The launching of the U.S. Navy’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus (SSN-571), in 1955 was a watershed—but not revolutionary—event. The Navy’s leadership was committed to nuclear submarines and any “opposition”—with two minor exceptions—had to be invented.
look into postwar uses of atomic energy. This committee included two Navy officers among its five members because, according to Groves, “I appointed this committee ... to have on the record a formal recommendation that a vigorous program looking toward an atomic powered submarine should be initiated when available personnel permitted.”
After the war the Bureau of Ships initiated a major nuclear submarine propulsion program; Captain Rickover was one of several officers assigned to the effort. The postwar head of the Bureau of Ships, Vice Admiral Earle Mills (who had been a member of Groves’s 1944 committee), appointed Rickover in 1948 as liaison to the Atomic Energy Commission in an attempt to get support for the Navy’s submarine program. Atomic Energy Commission historians Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan wrote that Mills knew “the task needed the kind of hardheaded, even ruthless, direction which he knew Rickover would give it.” Mills was supported by the Navy’s top submariners, among them Captain (later Vice Admiral) Elton Grenfell and Rear Admiral Charles B. Momsen, who met with the commission in 1948 in an effort to get backing for nuclear submarines.
Thus Rickover became head of the Navy’s nuclear propulsion program. Thomas B. Allen and I examined thousands of documents, letters, and files at the Naval Historical Center, other Navy, corporate, and final files for our book Rickover: Controversy and Genius (Simon & Schuster, 1981). Only two examples of Navy opposition to nuclear submarines could be found: Vice Admiral Robert B. Carney (later Chief of Naval Operations) urged a halt to nuclear submarine development in the hope that there could be a worldwide ban on nuclear propulsion, fearing that the Soviets would soon have such ships. The other opposition came from Navy nuclear weapon specialists, who felt there was too little nuclear material for both bombs and power plants.
By 1956—less than a year after the first U.S. nuclear submarine, the Nautilus (SSN-571), went to sea—the U.S. Navy’s leadership was firmly committed to nuclear submarines. No diesel-electric combat submarines were proposed from that time onward, only “nukes.” At the time, Rickover was a rear admiral, surely too junior to overcome opposition from the Navy’s leadership, including the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Ar- leigh Burke, if there had been serious opposition to submarines within the Navy.
If Admiral Early can document specific instances of Navy opposition to producing a reliable nuclear propulsion plant, he should share them with other readers of Proceedings. This is the proper forum in which to establish the facts. At this time, the facts indicate that Rickover invented opposition to gain and maintain his dictatorial control over the nation’s nuclear propulsion program. It becomes important to get at the truth because of the need for historical accuracy and the continued use of Rickover’s “tactics” in current U.S. Navy submarine programs.
“The Sinking of the Marine Electric”
(See C.J. Walter, pp. 96-100, October 1989
Proceedings)
Lieutenant Commander William Sontag, U.S. Navy—As flight support officer at Naval Air Station, Oceana, Virginia, on 12 February 1983,1 was called at home at 0400 by the Oceana duty officer and told of the Marine Electric’s difficulty. As an SH-3G search and rescue (SAR) aircraft commander, I assembled a crew and launched at 0515 into a moonless sky on the trailing edge of a major winter storm, flying over open ocean to a point 90 miles from Oceana. We arrived on station at 0605, the second helicopter on the scene. I can attest to the grisly scene that Lieutenant Olin described.
In his article on the rescue effort, Commander Walter did not recount the heroic efforts of Petty Officer Second Class James D. McCann, U.S. Navy, who was serving as my swimmer crewman (a crew position the Coast Guard did not have). In order to assist the recovery of people from the ocean, Petty Officer McCann was lowered in 37° water, where he spent almost an hour working against 20- to 25-foot swells while putting bodies into the Coast Guard’s rescue basket (a piece of equipment the Navy did not have). After hypothermia began to degrade his performance, McCann was brought up, taken ashore by helicopter to Salisbury Airport, and given a chance to warm up. We returned to Oceana after almost four hours of flight time.
Within a week, Petty Officer McCann received the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism from Vice Admiral Thomas J. Kilcline (then Commander, Naval Air Force, Atlantic Fleet). The rest of the crew, Lieutenant (junior grade) Kevin Lynch, Aviation Structural Mechanic Second Class Stephen Scarborough, Hospital Corpsman First Class Welby Jackson, and I received letters of commendation and numerous accolades from such institutions as the Hampton Roads Maritime Association. The Navy SAR organization eventually benefited from our rescue attempt, which generated interest in obtaining an improved “Billy Pugh”-style rescue net (now standard equipment on SAR SH-3 helicopters) and the outfitting of Navy SAR SH-3s with a compatible long-range navigation system, an ideal piece of equipment for open-ocean SAR.