The U.S. Navy has recently turned its attention to the quality of life for sailors in shipyard availabilities. This focus is appropriate, because the shipyard is an arduous and demoralizing experience. Instead of knowing "the fun and zest of going to sea,” as Admiral Elmo Zumwalt phrased it, sailors in the shipyard don hardhats, safety glasses, and steel-toe boots to work inside landlocked engineering projects. They might spend most of their time in the shipyard, day after day for weeks on end, while they conduct extensive maintenance. They will likely even sleep in an industrial environment on duty days.
The Navy has come to understand the sailor’s ordeal in the shipyard at great cost. In the past five years, carriers undergoing maintenance in different shipyards experienced a string of suicides. In his endorsement of the USS George Washington (CVN-73) shipyard quality-of-life investigation, Rear Admiral John F. Meier, then-Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic, noted: “57% of CVN suicides occurred in shipyards over the last 5 years. Without accounting for the reduced crew size, that represents an approximate two times (2X) higher likelihood of suicide onboard a CVN in a shipyard. When crew size is factored in to the equation . . . the likelihood increases to at least three times (3X).”
Navy leaders have made significant improvements to quality of life for sailors in the shipyard over the past two years. Some problems, however, are simply inherent to the shipyard and are not necessarily solvable with the tools available to Navy senior leaders.
Deckplate leaders taking their ships to the shipyard need to have a clear-eyed understanding of what they and their sailors are about to experience. They also need to recognize the absolute centrality of their own involved and thoughtful leadership.
Having served on board submarines in four availabilities at three different shipyards, I recommend submarine deckplate leaders headed to the shipyard watch the classic movie The Bridge on the River Kwai. The movie tells the story of a group of British prisoners of war tasked with building a bridge in the jungle for the Japanese during World War II.
Shipyards are not prison camps, and sailors are not POWs. But The Bridge on the River Kwai can help deckplate leaders and their shipyard partners understand what some sailors may be experiencing. The movie should also show these leaders the indispensability of strong leadership, ownership, and teamwork. Most important, it should reinforce that we are not victims.
Rough Work, Rough Treatment
Early in the movie, a battalion of British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Nicholson (played by Alec Guinness) arrive at a POW camp. The camp’s commander, Colonel Saito (played by Sessue Hayakawa) tells them: “If you work hard, you will be treated well, but if you do not work hard, you will be punished!”1 Later Saito adds: “Notice I do not say ‘English soldiers.’ From the moment you surrendered, you ceased to be soldiers.”2
This sums up how many submariners feel they are treated at the shipyard. They support their shipyard partners by deenergizing, depressurizing, and draining various systems. Sometimes submariners disassemble, repair, and reassemble small valves. They replace hundreds of O-rings and lubricate components. On top of this, they still stand 24 or more hours of duty at a time, go to trainers, and qualify various watches for their professional development. These qualifications are usually provisional. They require higher levels of theoretical knowledge and involve less hands-on experience. This can be more challenging and prolonged than qualifying on an operational ship.
Unlike their shipyard partners, submariners are not in unions. They work more than eight hours a day. They may be on the verge of leaving when a new shift of shipyard workers arrives and asks for support to make a system ready for work. It is one thing when the request is known ahead of time. It is quite another when shipyard managers spring such a request on the crew at the last moment. This forces the commanding officer (CO) to decide whether some sailors will stay late, or if the shipyard can accuse the ship of “failing to support.” Most COs normally choose to make some sailors stay late. They might try to take care of these shipmates by granting time off on another occasion. Regardless, a submariner may put their spouse and children through the stress of having to rapidly change plans for childcare, dinner, and other domestic responsibilities, all to support their shipyard partners’ poor planning.
In addition, submariners spend far more time in the controlled industrial area (CIA) than do their civilian shipyard counterparts. Assuming a unionized shipyard mechanic works eight hours a day for five days each week, they spend about 24 percent of a seven-day week in the CIA. Now consider a submariner standing three-section duty rotation. Even if they only work eight hours on non-duty days, they spend an average of 49 percent of their time in the CIA–over twice as much as a unionized worker.3 Some submariners likely spend even more time in the CIA, especially if they are in divisions that provide significant support for production.
All of this makes some submariners feel like POWs themselves. Submariners also feel that their shipyard partners fail to see them as sailors, because these partners have no appreciation for the time and effort it takes to develop and maintain operational mariner and combat skills. Under such conditions, sailors will relate with Colonel Nicholson when he insists his battalion is “not a gang of slaves, but soldiers!”4
A Draining Commute
At the beginning of The Bridge on the River Kwai, Colonel Nicholson’s battalion disembarks from a railroad train in the middle of the jungle. In their march to the POW camp, they hack their way through vines and wear the soles off their shoes. They finally arrive dirty and tired. Sailors in the shipyard can identify with this awful trek to work.
The George Washington investigation noted that sailors often spent hours in Hampton Roads traffic just to reach a far-off shipyard parking lot, ride a shuttle for an hour to another distant parking lot, and finally walk 12 minutes to their ship at Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding. As Admiral Meier wrote in his endorsement: “The Sailors’ commute is intense and unlike any other Sailor’s commute in the Hampton Roads area.”
Farther north, a group of former submarine junior officers wrote about the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard:
“You will spend approximately 2 hours of your day sitting in traffic to get on and off base because the shipyard bubbas dressed in Tom Brady jerseys arrived at 0400 to get a coveted parking garage spot close to the boats and then sleep in their trucks. You will then have the honor and privilege of parking at the farthest end of the island and walking a mile to get to your boat. As you walk, the tall warehouses and depths of the drydock will funnel the truly arctic level winds to ensure that no matter how many uniform layers you wear, by the time you arrive on the 50-year old barge you call home, you will be a human popsicle.”
Similar statements could be written about nearly any other shipyard in the United States. Nearly all are in areas with constrained parking and limited quality housing. For sailors and shipyard workers alike, this means a draining commute that bookends a strenuous work shift.
Meetings in a Different Language
At a pivotal moment in The Bridge on the River Kwai, Colonel Nicholson and his leadership team request a conference with Colonel Saito and his senior lieutenants. The meeting is a superb parallel to the interactions many submariners experience with their shipyard counterparts.
In the movie, the British and Japanese are separated by language and culture. We may all speak English in the shipyard, but it still feels as if a language barrier stands between sailors and other workers. Shipyard managers often sprinkle industrial vocabulary throughout any discussion–a truly foreign language of “BQWP, earned value, 3G, 7G, WDRs, EDRs, and FMR.” Cultural differences also exist. Submariners have a fundamentally different conception of risk management, adequate planning horizons, and quality of life compared to their shipyard counterparts. This language and culture gap can worsen hostility between sailors and their shipyard partners.
Leadership Lessons for the Shipyard
All this paints a sobering picture of life in the shipyard, but The Bridge on the River Kwai offers a leadership guide for overcoming the challenges described.
In the context of the movie, Colonel Nicholson completely loses perspective. He prioritizes his battalion’s discipline and morale over their contribution to the Allied war effort, which would best be served by building a poor bridge under Japanese management. Yet Nicholson’s leadership is an effective example for leaders in the shipyard.
Set red lines. Early in the movie, Nicholson fights a battle of wills with the Japanese colonel. Saito demands that all prisoners work on the bridge, while Nicholson insists his officers will not perform manual labor and will instead continue to lead their soldiers. Despite being tortured, Nicholson refuses to give in, ultimately compelling Saito to meet his demands.
Like Nicholson, COs should mitigate sailors’ concerns by setting red lines that require a CO’s permission to cross. These red lines might include a minimum number of days for the shipyard to request work-control isolations prior to commencing work; a time of the day after which the CO’s permission is required to begin or continue work; or the standard of shipyard support for compartment and tank closeouts. COs must work with their shipyard partners to set reasonable standards. They must also be willing to hold fast against considerable pressure. Immediate superiors in command, type commanders, and Naval Sea Systems Command should mentor COs on how to establish reasonable red lines and should support them as necessary to ensure the crew’s safety and quality of life.
Meetings and partnership between the crew and the project team are essential. In the movie, the conference between the Japanese and the British proves critical to construction of the bridge. Similarly, integration meetings between the crew and shipyard leaders are vital to maintaining progress. The shipyard has the resources and people to accomplish industrial production. Crewmembers, meanwhile, bring a deep knowledge of their systems that most shipyard workers do not have. Much as Saito needs Nicholson to tell him the bridge is being built in the wrong place, and much as Nicholson needs Saito to pledge Japanese guards to support track construction, COs and project superintendents must hold meetings to understand problems, work out solutions, and center the entire project team on the path forward. Finally, COs and project superintendents must prioritize teamwork and mutual respect to minimize hostility and maximize production.
Keep sailors gainfully employed. Nicholson tells his officers: “I know our men. You’ve got to keep them occupied. . . . It’s essential that they should take a pride in their job.”5 Similarly, submariners need to be challenged with worthwhile and meaningful duties, whether these be qualifications, realistic training, or maintenance. The ship’s force divisions with the lowest morale and lowest performance are usually the same divisions whose leaders challenge their sailors the least, hold them to the lowest standards, and allow them to leave early without getting anything done. This is no coincidence. Every ship’s leader must remember they are responsible for building and maintaining readiness to fight at sea.
Take the long view. Deckplate leaders must keep in mind that certain repairs made in availabilities should last for at least a decade. They need to emphasize that their sailors are contributing to a quality warship that might prove consequential in a future conflict. As Nicholson tells his soldiers: “One day . . . you’re going to feel very proud of what you have achieved here in the face of great adversity.”6
We still own our ships. Submariners must feel they own the availability as much as their shipyard partners do. Nicholson exemplifies this attitude. He and his officers take complete ownership of the bridge project. They identify a better site to build the bridge, generate a sturdier design, and select better building materials. While shipyard project teams are ultimately responsible for production, Nicholson and his officers’ forward-leaning involvement is exactly the sort of ownership successful ships need to expeditiously complete availabilities.
Returning from the River Kwai
The Bridge on the River Kwai can only go so far toward depicting the shipyard experience, of course. Shipyard workers are not brutal Japanese captors. Indeed, they are patriots who take justified pride in building and maintaining warships that serve for decades. Shipyard facilities are not a ramshackle collection of huts in a squalid jungle. Sailors work hard in the shipyard, but shipyard workers are ultimately responsible for industrial production.
Having watched The Bridge on the River Kwai, submarine deckplate leaders and their shipyard partners should guard against sailors’ labor being taken advantage of. They should identify ways to mitigate the long commutes and distant parking. Ship crews and project teams should maximize the value of integration meetings. COs and their leadership teams should gainfully employ sailors, hold red lines, and maintain ownership of their ships. The most important takeaway is that we are still sailors. We are not POWs, and we are not victims. Our fight may be the maintenance mission, but it is a mission we must win.
1. David Lean, director, The Bridge on the River Kwai (Columbia Pictures Corp, 1957). Starting at 12:00.
2. The Bridge on the River Kwai, starting at 21:00.
3. This averages three weeks of three-section duty, in which a sailor might spend as much as 96 hours (assuming eight-hour workdays) in the CIA, or as little as 72 hours.
4. The Bridge on the River Kwai, starting at 1:31:00.
5. The Bridge on the River Kwai, starting at 1:09:00.
6. The Bridge on the River Kwai, starting at 2:19:00.