"August Coast Guard Issue"
Colonel John Collins, U.S. Army (Retired)—Most men and women who wear Department of Defense uniforms see four military services, instead of five. The same is true of most civilians who specialize in national security. I therefore applaud the August 2003 issue, which gives the United States Coast Guard long overdue credit with three feature articles, a commentary, and two pages of "Professional Notes."
Title 14, United States Code, identifies the Coast Guard as a "military service and a branch of the armed forces. . . at all times." Nonmilitary pursuits normally took precedence before the attacks of 11 September 2001, but no service has contributed more to U.S. counterterrorism campaigns since that date. The first Coast Guard commandant put it this way more than eight decades ago: whereas "peacetime usefulness is a byproduct of the Navy, it is wartime usefulness that is a byproduct of the Coast Guard." His assessment remains sound.
"Why I Am Failing My Junior Officers"
(See K. O'Neal, pp. 40-42, July 2003; N. Van Schaik, p. 12, August 2003 Proceedings)
Commander Chan Swallow, U.S. Navy—Lieutenant O'Neal states that an overabundance of officers reduces training opportunities and results in a "thrive immediately or die" environment for junior officers (JOs). He also believes these problems are exacerbated by sending ensigns right to the fleet from their commissioning source. As commanding officer of the USS Nicholas (FFG-47), I feel just the opposite. Having more junior officers allows:
- Healthy competition that results in faster and better qualifications
- Collateral duties to be spread further, resulting in more training time and higher quality training
- More qualified junior officers, hence more time off watch to study warfighting
These factors are especially evident on deployments such as the one we are on currently. On deployment, there is an abundance of training opportunities and my JOs enjoy the fast-paced life of a frigate at sea. Camaraderie among the junior officers is at an all-time high and the new Surface Warfare Officer School at Sea program is reinforcing this trend by giving young officers more time to learn by doing—the best way to learn.
Here are a few examples of training opportunities provided to my JOs from the most recent three days of our deployment. Division officers just out of college:
- Transited the English Channel
- Escorted the USNS Big Horn (T-AO-198) through the Danish Straits for 18 hours
- Exercised numerical code tables during an actual search-and-rescue operation
- Fired 9-mm, 50-caliber, and M-60 machine guns
- Studied Russian warship capabilities in preparation for a once-in-a-lifetime port visit to St. Petersburg, Russia
- Conned alongside the USNS Big Horn in low visibility in the Baltic Sea
What schoolhouse can provide that kind of training? When the Nicholas returns from deployment, all her ensigns will be officers of the deck, or nearly so. They will have planned and executed complex tactical scenarios, operated shipboard systems, supervised critical maintenance, and gained invaluable leadership experience.
Key to the success of this effort are the department heads and second-tour division officers who are training our new officers. They are reaching out to teach their relief and passing on their experiences. A methodical system for tracking and directing the growth of new officers has been put into place using valuable new tools we have been given. All ships now have training officers and the Surface Warfare Officer School has provided CDs loaded with references and background knowledge. Most important, we have the perfect classroom—there is no better place to teach officers than in a warship at sea.
Our system to ensure new officers thrive is simple: We find important work for each one and we hold them accountable. My four newest division officers have the following billets: first lieutenant, ordnance officer, electronic warfare/intelligence officer, and gunnery officer. These are not "made-up" jobs. Each of these billets holds great challenges and opportunities, and all my division officers are contributing in a meaningful way to the success of our command. I am proud to lead them.
Lieutenant Commander James McReynolds, U.S. Navy, Executive Officer, USS Roosevelt (DDG-80)—It is obvious that there are disadvantages to having a "glut" of division officers, but this situation also presents positive opportunities for reporting ensigns and wardrooms in general.
One of the biggest advantages is how the extra numbers of junior officer supports the new surface warfare officer (SWO) training pipeline. With officers coming directly from their commissioning source to the ships and expected to be qualified as officer of the deck or SWO in about a year, the abundance of division officers allows new ensigns more time to concentrate on their training, personnel qualification standards, and watch-standing skills.
Instead of a "compromised qualification process with little oversight and attention to detail" that the author envisions, I argue that with the extra time we should raise the standards at qualification boards and expect a deeper level of knowledge from our future SWOs before they wear the pin. The fact that not all of them will be required to step into demanding first-tour billets affords them training opportunities few of us more senior officers had. As they progress or qualify, they can be moved into more time-demanding billets and collateral duties. This also gives the command more time to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. Far from ensigns being "written off if they are getting a slow start, the command leadership has the opportunity to move people to places where they can succeed or get the help they need. In addition, some of the "made up" billets can be challenging when combined with a large collateral duty. Administrative officer with legal officer as a collateral duty, force protection officer with boarding officer responsibilities, or assistant chief engineer and the responsibility to track critical engineering programs are examples that jump to mind. Locker officer always is a challenging collateral duty if it is performed properly and I can't imagine a ship that would not find work for a damage control assistant as well as a R division officer during the basic phase of training.
Anyone who reads back issues of Proceedings will find articles written when division officers were overwhelmed with primary and collateral duties. The arguments are strikingly similar to Lieutenant O'Neal's article: low morale, low standards, low retention. Both overmanning and undermanning can be frustrating to a young officer learning what it means to be a SWO. I refuse to accept the argument that young officers "lose faith in the system" simply because a division is not handed to them. If this is the case, we are building unrealistic expectations of fleet life at their commissioning source or we are not training them to be leaders.
"It Is Time to Transform the Naval Reserve"
(See S. Cvrk, R. Robey, pp. 52-55, August 2003 Proceedings)
Vice Admiral John B. Totushek, U.S. Naval Reserve, Director, Naval Reserve—Reading this article reminds one of the old saw that "where you sit determines what you see." Captains Cvrk and Robey have enjoyed operationally oriented Naval Reserve careers while located close to their gaining commands. This leads them to apply their model to the entire Naval Reserve force. Their article ignores transformational processes already under way, appears not to understand the synergistic relationship of reserve and active commands, and fails to recognize the methodology for years of successful fleet support. Using straw-man assumptions, it recommends actions that directly contravene the U.S. law (Title 10) governing the Naval Reserve components.
The pursuit of positive change has been one of prime initiatives of Commander, Naval Reserve Force, during the past five years. Through our leading change process, town hall meetings, frequent visits to reserve centers, and a large group intervention process called appreciative inquiry, we continue to embrace a free exchange of ideas and seek solutions.
The Naval Reserve functions under direction of the Chief of Naval Operations and relevant legal authority. Within those channels, in the last two years we have aligned Naval Reserve structures with active-duty structures, reduced administrative bureaucracy, streamlined procedures with the Naval Reserve Order Writing System, and improved delivery systems in every way possible within current law and funding. More changes are coming soon. Almost all reservists with whom I speak reflect satisfaction with the support they receive from our full-time staff.
Let me introduce a few facts into the discussion:
- The Naval Reserve has been transforming. Witness the alignment of the headquarters staffs where we sharply reduced bureaucracy by consolidating and realigning Echelon II and II commands, resulting in manpower efficiencies that will send full-time support billets to fleet commanders
- A preponderance of reservists live in the middle of the country without immediate access to their gaining command
- All Naval Reserve units' missions are defined by the active Navy
- Most Naval Reserve programs are managed by their active-duty gaining commands
Title 10 of the U.S. Code dictates the structure of the Naval Reserve. The entire Naval Reserve chain of command interacts daily with the active force. Reserve administration facilitates, not impairs, communication with the active force. The active forces tells us what they need, and the reserve force identifies and delivers the manpower.
Disconnected from the fleet? Irrespective of its physical location, in today's "virtual world" no reserve command is disconnected from the fleet. The Commander, Naval Reserve Force, is assigned in an additional duty status to Commander, Fleet Forces Command, Commander, Pacific Fleet, Commander, Naval Forces Europe, and Commander, U.S. Forces, U.S. Central Command. Any argument that a headquarters command today must be colocated near a customer is simply passé. When we stood up Commanders Naval Air and Surface Forces, we did not ask them to move to Norfolk. We are economically colocated in New Orleans with Marine Force Reserve.
Similarly, we have reviewed all of our reserve centers to take advantage of joint training sites. Wherever practical we have reduced the number of our Naval Reserve Activities, down from 454 at their peak to just 168 today.
In many communities far removed from fleet concentration centers, the Naval Reserve Center is the U.S. Navy. Center staffs perform an impressive array of active Navy missions ranging from casualty assistance calls officer to funereal duties, dependent service, TriCare coordination, Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System (DEERS) support, identification card (ID) processing, and others.
The article proposes solutions to problems that do not even exist. The contention is that reservists should serve based on the needs of the active-duty Navy and should be promoted based on their direct contributions to active-duty organizations. That is exactly the way we have been doing business in our Naval Reserve for years.
In our Naval Reserve, a well-qualified officer must be a skilled multitasker progressively educated by rotating through professional assignments. Naval Reserve statutory promotion boards parallel those in the active Navy, following precepts established by the Bureau of Naval Personnel and presided by an active-duty member. Specifically, no selection board ever established a standard for selection that involved supporting "the existing reserve bureaucracy" and, contrary to the authors' contention, reserve flags are detailed to operational billets and hold readiness command jobs only secondarily. By the way, Rear Admiral Jack Hines just completed a stint as Commander, Carrier Group One.
The temporary active reserve and full-time support staffs act as conduits to harness the ability to support active forces: they are the "gates," not the "fences," for training, equipping and managing the force. The conclusions of the authors about full-time support staff at the reserve centers are based on the false assumption that these persons fill billets funded by Congress for other purposes.
This essay appears to offer a well-meaning critique, but it does a disservice to the Navy and its Naval Reserve by targeting issues long ago addressed and resolved, oversimplifying complex working relationships, and advocating courses of action that directly contravene existing law and the truth.
"Mush Morton and the Buyo Maru Massacre"
(See J. Holwitt, pp. 80-81, July 2003 Proceedings)
Lieutenant Colonel Gary Solis, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired), Marine Corps' Chief of Oral History, former director of West Point's law of war program—Ensign Holwitt's article requires comment and correction. It is distressing that he so completely misunderstands the law of the sea, condoning actions that, if he were to commit them, would subject him to trial and conviction for violations of the law of armed conflict.
That law has matured considerably since World War II. The 1949 Geneva Conventions were, of course, not in being when the Buyo Maru survivors were fired on as they drifted defenseless after being sunk by the Wahoo (SS-238). It is difficult to fault an officer of such deservedly mythic proportion as Lieutenant Commander Dudley Morton. But Ensign Holwitt should have no doubt that, in firing on survivors, Morton committed a clear violation of the law of war, even as it stood in 1943.
On land is it lawful to kill enemy survivors of an attack? Of course not. Are survivors in the sea any different, to be given no quarter? The 1913 Oxford Manual of Naval War makes this prohibition explicit, but the ban on shooting survivors in the water is so basic and longstanding that it needs no treaty or textual citation.
While I admire Rear Admiral Richard O'Kane, holder of the Medal of Honor, I have always been dismayed by his assertion that Morton had no option; that to not machine-gun the Buyo Maru's lifeboats would be aiding and abetting the enemy. In attempting to explain his deceased friend's conduct, Admiral O'Kane surely recognized his words as misleading and wrong. Morton did have an option and in no respect would it aid or abet the enemy to not fire on survivors. This is not a legalistic parsing of statutes, or an exercise requiring calm solution by philosophy students. It was a clear-cut multiple unlawful homicide by a commander who also issued unlawful orders for his crew to execute his illegal design.
This is not a "moral quandary," as Ensign Holwitt puts it, and, contrary to his assertion, the point has been solved satisfactorily. Following World War I, Germany tried several of its own citizens for war crimes initially charged by the Allies. The German court had no hesitation in convicting navy Lieutenants Ludwig Dithmar and John Boldt for carrying out orders to fire on survivors of the Llandovery Castle, a British ship they had sunk. After World War II, we tried the commander of the U-852, Heinz Eck, for similar acts. His defense of "operational necessity" was disregarded, and he was convicted and shot. It is painful to say that, even if an isolated survivor fired at Commander Morton's sub, his acts were no different than Dithmar's, Boldt's, or Eck's. Would Ensign Holwitt's thinking change were he adrift and facing a closing sub with deck guns manned? How would the United States react to hearing that her sailors had been machine-gunned after surviving sinking? It is ironic that the Wahoo received a Presidential Unit Citation and Morton a Navy Cross for that patrol, but his firing on survivors was not, then or now, an act that can be rationalized as lawful. To excuse Mortem by writing, "his government had made him a killer, and he was determined to be as effective a killer as possible," is the William Calley defense to My Lai. Surely we are beyond such an unthinking lack of target discrimination. Nor was this "a decision under the pressure of battle. . . to save the lives of his fellow servicemen." The battle was over. It was murder and an unambiguous violation of the law of armed conflict.
Quartermaster Third Class David L. Johnston, U.S. Naval Reserve—Let's put to rest the controversy over Lieutenant Commander Morton's actions once and for all. It was not a massacre.
This controversy seems to hinge on one major point: the "defenseless survivor" status of the troops. Those passengers on board the Buyo Maru were soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army. They voluntarily embarked aboard a vessel chartered by the Japanese government (which also carried war materiel) for the purpose of transport to a war zone in which they would conduct war operations against Allied forces. They all understood that they were sailing into harm's way. If it had been a civilian ship engaged in bringing food to Japanese civilians, and it had just been the ship's crew in the boats, the situation would have been vastly different.
The individual soldier was just as defenseless and powerless to prevent the Wahoo's attack while in his bunk on board ship as he was in the boats. Even as a unit, they could not stop the Wahoo. Yet, if the Buyo Maru had exploded and sank immediately and all hands had gone down with the ship, no one would have ever questioned Morton's actions and the death of the soldiers. But because the soldiers made it off the ship and into the boats before the ship went down, they seem to have been granted some sort of immunity from further attack.
What about their situation had changed? If the unit had embarked on board five smaller transports instead of one large one, does that grant them immunity? No. What if they were on board ten large metal barges instead of five small transports? No. How about 20 wooden "life" boats instead of the barges, boats that were capable of finishing the mission (at least in part) of the Buyo Maru? I do not accept the argument that their mere presence in small boats grants them safe passage.
The argument has been made that without their equipment, they were useless as a fighting force. True, but only to a certain extent. Imagine a U.S. Marine in a similar circumstance. If that Marine made it to friendly territory, he would have done everything in his power to assist the war effort, even if it was in a noncombat role. One could expect the same from the highly motivated Japanese soldiers. These men still constituted a threat, one that could not be mitigated, and therefore needed to be eliminated. Anything less would have been a dereliction of duty. That left Morton with one choice, the same choice that he had when he first sighted the ship: kill them.
If Morton's "racism" was a dark side to his greatness, then so it was on the entire nation. Racism was systemic, socially accepted, and sanctioned at very nearly every level of government during this period. Morton hated the Japanese because of the war that they had forced on our nation, for taking him and other Americans away from their families and loved ones, and for the harsh and cruel treatment of our prisoners of war. He channeled that hatred into supreme aggressiveness and an indomitable fighting spirit, two of the best qualities that we look for in a warrior. He also was tasked with the job of motivating his crew to perform the normally repugnant job of killing human beings. Partly dehumanizing the enemy through hatred was one of the methods he chose.
What, then, separates Dudley Morton and the rest of our professional military men of that time from the thugs of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan? It is our ability to beseech ourselves to justify our actions in combat within the framework of our society, and to question that act's morality. Our enemies sometimes did the former, but were universally incapable of the latter.
"Friendless Fire"
(See D. Walsh, pp. 58-64, June 2003; N. Polmar, D. Smyth, pp. 16-18, July 2003; J. Alden, T. Schaaf, pp. 21-22, August 2003 Proceedings)
Captain A. Jay Cristol, U.S. Naval Reserve (Retired)—David Walsh's article mentions my name 55 times, as well as my book and my dissertation. He describes my research as supporting Israel's position about the attack. My research examines more than ten official U.S. investigations of the incident (five of them congressional) as well as dozens of different conspiracy theories. In addition, I studied the Israeli investigations and conducted my own independent investigation in the United States, Israel, Egypt, and England. My research is primarily a review of the official U.S. position, not an argument on behalf of Israel. I earned a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Miami for ten years of research, culminating in the doctoral dissertation, "The Liberty Incident," which is on file in the Library of Congress, Number 98-135842. Then I wrote a book, The Liberty Incident, which updates the research to 2002. Many items of original evidence, which were too voluminous to print in the book or the dissertation, may be viewed as original documents on my Web site, www.libertyincident.com. The last element of my research was completed on 7 July 2003 when the National Security Agency (NSA) released the last bits of significant classified data.
The article does not disclose that Walsh has supported Liberty conspiracy stories for more than a decade. He told the intentional attack story to Thames TV in 1986 and was the author of a Liberty aftermath piece published by the Kuwaiti News Agency in June 1988. The Proceedings article identifies Walsh as a consultant on the Thames TV video "Attack on the Liberty" and on the 20/20 television program. The Proceedings article does not report that the Thames program did not adopt his conspiracy theories and that the 20/20 program with Barbara Walters and Hugh Downs flatly rejected the intentional theory and concluded with the statement "because there are mistakes."
The Walsh article contains numerous false or inaccurate statements. Space limits prevent discussing all of them here. The U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry Findings, the endorsement of Commander-in-Chief, Naval Forces Europe (Admiral John McCain), the Judge Advocate General's endorsement, the Chief of Naval Operation's endorsement, and the CIA and the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board conclusions are misrepresented or ignored by Walsh. They may be viewed at www.libertyincident.com/walsh-response.html, together with a more complete response. Let me use two examples to support my case and provide perspective using newly released information.
A standout box titled "Former NSA Officials Agree" states that four top NSA officials confirmed to Mr. Walsh that they know of no one at the National Security Agency who does not believe the attack on the Liberty was intentional. Walsh quoted former NSA officials, "Israeli pilot conversations recorded during the attack . . . made it absolutely certain they knew it was a U.S. ship" and that they were "unaware of any agency official . . .who dissented from the deliberate conclusion." This is the same claim made previously by James Bamford. However, on 24 April 2001, the Baltimore Sun reported:
Yesterday, an NSA spokesperson questioned a point made in the book about the USS Liberty. "We do not comment on operational matters, alleged or otherwise; however, Mr. Bamford's claim that the NSA leadership was 'virtually unanimous in their belief that the attack was deliberate' is simply not true."
The Liberty was the platform for performing an NSA mission. Twenty-five NSA personnel died in the attack. The NSA had every reason to be angry with Israel and to blame it for the attack.
On 21 January 2003, after being denied release of the audio tapes the NSA EC-121 recorded on 8 June 1967, I brought suit in federal district court to compel the NSA to declassify and release the tapes of transmissions recorded 8 June 1967 and other related information. For years, the conspiracy theory supporters have claimed that these tapes contain transmissions of the Israeli fighter pilots reporting the sighting of a U.S. flag on the Liberty before and during the attack as stated by Walsh in his article. Additional intentional attack theories include the Liberty's NSA compartment recording incriminating transmissions as well as a U.S. submarine nearby making intercepts of incriminating material.
On 7 July 2003, the NSA released to me the original recordings made by their EC-121 aircraft, the translations of the transmissions, work papers on the translations, and the secret message sent by the NSA to the White House on 22 June 1967. All this material may now be seen on the National Security Agency Web site www.nsa.gov as well as www.libertyincident.com. In addition to the released material, the NSA put three specific conspiracy myths to rest. NSA confirmed it neither had recordings of any Israeli transmissions intercepted before, during, or after the attack made by the Liberty, nor any such intercepts from a U.S. submarine, or by the EC-121 aircraft before or during the attack. What the NSA did release was the recorded transmissions of Israeli helicopter pilots being dispatched to a ship that had been identified as Egyptian and which confirmed that no U.S. flag was observed on the Liberty by the Israeli helicopter pilots until 1512, some 30 to 45 minutes after the attack was over and while Israel was attempting to conduct rescue operations. A reading of the NSA translations makes it clear that the Israelis did not identify the Liberty as American until almost three quarters of an hour after the attack had terminated.
The NSA went further. It declassified an additional portion of page 64 of the NSA 1981 report on the attack on the Liberty. That newly declassified material, posted on the NSA Web site on 8 July 2003 says:
While these reports [the NSA EC-121 intercepts] revealed some confusion on the part of the pilots concerning the nationality of the ship, they tended to rule out any thesis that the Israeli Navy and Air Force deliberately attacked a ship they knew to be American.
Second, Mr. Walsh states that retired U.S. Air Force Major General Morrison was offended and retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Odom was astonished when told of a display in a museum honoring the attackers of the Liberty. Rear Admiral Zeev Almog, Israeli Navy (Retired), a former Chief of the Israel Navy, and Rear Admiral Nir Maor, Israeli Navy (Retired), the present curator of the Israel Navy Museum at Haifa, were offended and astonished upon reading Walsh's claim because it is false. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a display in the Israel Navy Museum "honoring the attackers" of the Liberty or even mentioning the tragic incident. On display in the museum are the bell and helm of a torpedo boat that participated in the attack. These artifacts are there because they represent the last Israeli Navy motor torpedo boat to be decommissioned, along with numerous other bells and helms of other decommissioned Israel Navy ships. It is marked only with a small plaque in both Hebrew and English which simply reads "Bell and helm of motor torpedo boat 203." I included a picture of the helm and plaque in my dissertation. Mr. Walsh has not produced one shred of evidence to support his false claim.
The Liberty remains as Walsh describes her, "a sort of Flying Dutchman, sailing forever," sadly propelled on her unending voyage by the dual powers of the public appetite for conspiracy stories and by pure hate of persons and organizations with their own agendas who continue to irritate and manipulate the survivors without concern for the agony they cause. The conspiracy buffs and hate-mongers will not let healing or closure of this wound take place. The crewmembers of the Liberty suffered harshly while performing military service on behalf of the United States. They justly earned their awards for valor. They are entitled to be honored and respected for their service and their sacrifice. God bless the gallant crew members of the USS Liberty and God bless America.