 Sub heard ship an hour earlier
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By Sally Apgar
Advertiser Staff Writer
Susan Nolan of Hawai‘i Kai stood at the weapons panel in the control room of the USS Greeneville as it hurtled to the surface of the ocean at an incline that felt steeper than a 747 airplane on take off.
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| Susan Nolan saw the Ehime Maru sink on the submarine's monitors. |
Just as she felt the fast-attack submarine break the surface and its nose begin to come down, there was "this really, really big bang," Nolan said in an interview yesterday.
Unfamiliar with what the noise meant, Nolan glanced at Cmdr. Scott Waddle for reassurance. A look of shock shot over his face, said Nolan. A second or so later, a violent shudder shook the sub "like the ship was coming apart."
Waddle said, "What the hell was that?" she recalled.
A crew member replied, "I have no idea, sir."
Nolan, one of the 16 civilian guests aboard the Greeneville, told The Advertiser about the emergency surfacing drill maneuver the Greeneville performed 12 days ago when it ripped through the hull of a Japanese fishing boat that was training high school students. Nine people are still missing.
"The crew was in shock" in the initial seconds after the accident, Nolan said.
Waddle grabbed the periscope, spun it and zeroed in on the white broadside view of the stricken vessel that was already sinking, she said. Waddle, she recalled, said they had hit a ship and he read the name out loud: Ehime Maru.
Nolan and others in the control room could see the periscope view on flat monitors that were scattered throughout the control room and the other four levels of the 6,900-ton sub.
"Right away, the Ehime Maru was low in the water and sinking very quickly," said Nolan.
Waddle ordered the guests herded down another level to the crew’s mess where Nolan and the others could see the sinking ship on flat monitors there.
"It didn’t sink in 10 minutes. It was a lot faster. More like three minutes, at the most five minutes," said Nolan.
She said that as the crew escorted the civilians out of the crew’s mess and down another level to the torpedo room she watched on the monitor as the sea swallowed the ship.
"I could just see the ship. I couldn’t see people or life rafts," she said. "It went straight down and didn’t break up."
Nolan said that in the first few minutes after the accident a voice over the intercom ordered the crew’s divers to report to the top of the sub.
"The rest of the crew was scrambling getting ready to take on people who were to be rescued from the ship."
She said that within "about five minutes" of the accident, the guests were moved from the crew’s mess so that its adjustable tables and benches could be converted to an emergency medical area.
The guests were taken down another level to the torpedo room where there were no monitors to watch. The civilians’ only knowledge of what was happening came from periodic reports from crew members or announcements over the ship’s intercom system.
They spent another hour in the torpedo room and were returned to the crew’s mess because it was not going to be used to treat the rescued. The Greeneville has been criticized for not rescuing victims of the fishing vessels and not sending divers into the water or taking people from the life rafts on board.
Nolan, a 39-year old business manager, said she wanted to talk about what happened because "it was a tragic accident and I feel so much sympathy for the people who were on board the Ehime Maru and for the families of those who are missing."
"I want the families to know how compassionate the crew was and how they did everything in their power to keep people safe until rescuers (the Coast Guard boats) came."
Nolan said the water was choppy and the sub was rocking so badly that most of the civilians took two doses of Dramamine.
She said the crew said "it was safer for them (the survivors) to wait in the life rafts than to climb onto a slippery sub that’s rocking."
Nolan said no one on the sub spoke Japanese and the crew could not communicate with the victims in the life rafts.
Nolan defended the crew’s actions before, during and after the accident. Before executing the drill, Waddle ordered the sub brought to 30 feet below the surface for a periscope scan, Nolan said. One crew member made two complete revolutions and then Waddle made two. Watching monitors, she only saw a hazy, cloudy sky and the ocean.
"There was absolutely nothing out there. That’s why this is so inexplicable," she said.
The sub descended rapidly to 400 feet and stayed there five to seven minutes before initiating the maneuver, Nolan said. Two levers called "chicken switches" were pulled to force high-pressure air into the sub’s ballast so that it rocketed to the surface. The Navy and other experts have repeatedly said that once the levers are pulled, there is no way to stop.
Some experts have theorized that the accident happened because the sub stayed down too long, creating a lag between the periscope scan and the drill that allowed the fishing boat to move into danger.
Nolan also said that another guest, John Clary of Stow, Mass., was at the controls of the sub but had two crewmen looking over his shoulder. Houston oilman John Hall pulled the chicken switches, but she said another crew member had his hands over Hall’s the whole time.
"The civilians were in no way driving the sub. It was the illusion of driving," said Nolan, adding that within seconds of the accident the civilians were shoved far from the control stations.
They spent the night on board the sub and returned to Pearl Harbor the next morning. The Navy gave no instructions on what they should tell the outside world, she said.
She said the civilians were subdued.
"We didn’t talk, and we said silent prayers for the men on the boat."
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