47
1 DAY 12 SESSION 3 MARCH 20, 2001
2 EXAMINATION BY VADM NATHMAN (CONTINUED)
3 Q On your previous DV embarkation underways, did
4 you give styrofoam cups?
5 A I don't recall, sir, but I wouldn't be
6 surprised if we did.
7 Q Can you explain -- you are giving a DV embark.
8 Now, can you explain to me how you reconcile a
9 casualty maneuver, in other words, you are performing
10 a casualty maneuver and an emergency blow, I
11 understand it to be a casualty maneuver or an
12 emergency maneuver -- is that appropriate to perform
13 a casualty or emergency maneuver with distinguished
14 visitors, people that are not part of the crew?
15 A You are speaking of the emergency blow, sir?
16 Q Yes.
17 A The appropriateness of that was a decision that
18 I made with the support of my crew, the executive
19 officer, when we put that days events on that
20 schedule together.
21 The emergency blow is important in my mind as
22 an act where we can demonstrate the capability of the
23 submarine to ascend to the surface in the event a
24 casualty flooding, for example, arises.
25 It's well understood that two submarines were
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48
1 lost because of issues concerning the sub-safe
2 procedure, and as a result sometime thereafter, the
3 emergency blow system was installed to provide for
4 safeguards for the crew members.
5 So admiral, I would say that when media is
6 taken to sea, when special interest groups,
7 educators, as Admiral Konetzni stated are taken to
8 sea, this is but one evolution that the submarine
9 can perform which again demonstrates the capability
10 of the ship. That was the purpose.
11 Q Well, you need to reconcile it a little bit
12 with me. My understanding is that on a MRC
13 requirement, it's a once-a-year requirement for a
14 submarine to do that, is that correct?
15 A Sir, I do not have the unrestricted maintenance
16 operation requirement here, if it can be presented as
17 an exhibit.
18 Q I think we took it as evidence last week, that
19 it was required once a week.
20 A Well, sir, then based on the testimony that was
21 taken, if it is correct, I would agree that annually
22 as requirement, but I don't have it in front of me.
23 I can't confirm it.
24 Q It indicates to me the Navy's value of the
25 emergency blow. It's required to be done once a year
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49
1 to make sure all the systems and sub-systems that
2 support an emergency blow operate properly so that
3 you as a commanding officer are assured if you have
4 to emergency blow for a reason that the systems will
5 work, and so the Navy's insured by once-a-year check
6 of this to validate the whole process.
7 I don't quite understand the training value of
8 an emergency blow, nor do I understand -- because
9 it's been described to me that when you do an
10 emergency blow, it's an irretrievable process, in
11 other words, you are no longer in control of your
12 submarine. It is going to go to the surface, come
13 hell or high water.
14 So you are performing a casualty maneuver,
15 which I find unusual, because see -- okay, I don't
16 drive submarines, I drive airplanes, but I know I am
17 not going to take a DV up and spin an airplane or do
18 an engine-out, or an auto-rotation of a helicopter,
19 because that may be iretrievable, it puts a lot more
20 risk in the process.
21 So you have 16 DVs on board, you are the
22 commanding officer, and you choose to regularly
23 perform an emergency blow as part of your DV embarks.
24 I think you did one in Santa Barbara. So I am trying
25 to understand if it's only required once a year to
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50
1 validate the systems in that ship to make sure it's
2 going to safely work, to support the submarine and
3 its crew to get safely to the surface, how do you
4 reconcile doing that consistently with DVs on board
5 when it's been characterized as a casualty maneuver?
6 A Admiral, the emergency blow or varying forms of
7 it can be performed for a number of reasons.
8 Admiral Sullivan in his cross of some of the
9 crew members made it clear that it may be a static
10 blow that follows, say, a certain repair, or some
11 form of maintenance that might be performed on the
12 system to confirm its operation.
13 In this case, when we took the distinguished
14 visitors to sea, I can't tell you if the emergency
15 blow was performed as a re-test for maintenance.
16 I am confident it wasn't, because if we had
17 performed maintenance on the air system of my
18 submarine, I would have known about it.
19 But as I stated earlier, it was a process that
20 demonstrated to the distinguished visitors the ships
21 capability to recover from a casualty.
22 How did I reconcile performing this particular
23 event? Again, it was an event that I was comfortable
24 and confident that my ship could perform, the system
25 would operate as designed, and I wouldn't end up
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51
1 having to repair anything prior to my scheduled
2 underway the following Monday.
3 The chief of staff asked me about that that
4 evening of February 9th when he was in my state
5 room. He said, you know, skipper, it looked like you
6 had a great handle on things, and I didn't question
7 you performing the emergency blow, because I felt you
8 knew what you were doing.
9 Now, when I was in command of the San Juan, I
10 wouldn't have done it. I would have been afraid that
11 my auxillary men would have had to fix something -- a
12 knocker valve -- something along those lines.
13 We had just completed a four months selected
14 restricted availability. And I knew that my air
15 systems were tight, were fully operational, and
16 capable of supporting this evolution.
17 I did it to demonstrate to the distinguished
18 visitors what the submarine capability is during the
19 course of an emergency ascent to the surface.
20 Q It was your decision it's not the chief of
21 staff's decision?
22 A No, sir. It was my decision, and if I may --
23 and again, I don't have the information here, and I
24 am relying upon some memory here from my days as a
25 damage control assistant back in 1983 to 1985 and
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1 maybe Admiral Sullivan can validate it -- but it used
2 to be performed more frequently.
3 Was that a excuse for that day?
4 No, sir. I performed and had my crew perform
5 the emergency blow to demonstrate to the
6 distinguished visitors what that system could do, and
7 to show them that --
8 VADM NATHMAN: Let's go back,
9 because I don't think you quite answered the question
10 for me. How do you reconcile then the safety of
11 performing an emergency maneuver that's been
12 described as iretrievable? You are going to go to
13 the surface, you can't do anything about it -- if
14 there is anything up there you are going to come to
15 the surface -- how do you reconcile the safety, then,
16 the process of being more safe?
17 It's a DV evolution, it's not a casualty
18 maneuver for you, it's a demonstration as you
19 characterized it. So how do you balance the safety
20 of your boat, okay, and your crew, and those DVs in
21 doing an emergency blow regularly on DV embarks with
22 what you're about to go do?
23 I mean what is the balance there? Is it just
24 because it's fun?
25 A No, sir, it's not fun. I will answer this
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1 question. I will get to it.
2 I had a number of new crew members on board,
3 relatively new, who had gone to sea, some for the
4 first time. I can't tell you who on this particular
5 list, without other paper work, that had never been
6 to sea before --
7 Q I wouldn't expect you to know that.
8 A I know, sir. But every time I took the
9 submarine to sea knowing I had new crew members, I
10 did a couple of things.
11 We rigged the ship for submergence, I took the
12 ship to test depth, we operated at flank bell, and
13 angles and dangles.
14 I did those three things to demonstrate to my
15 new crew members what the submarine's capabilities
16 were. Some of the guys were scared, first time going
17 to sea, understandably. And I couldn't recall who on
18 this particular day, 9 February, that I took to sea
19 that hadn't been to sea before. But we went to test
20 test. We did angles and dangles. We operated at
21 flank bell, so my crew, the new guys, got that
22 benefit.
23 In conducting the emergency blow, it also
24 provided my crew with training value and benefit.
25 And that was another reason for executing it -- not
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1 just for the amusement of distinguished visitors
2 Q Well, can I go to that point?
3 When you were doing angles and dangles you took
4 your helmsman off, and you purposely brought up a
5 more experienced guy to do angles and dangles.
6 Your diving officer of the watch was the guy
7 you had the most confidence in. So in other words,
8 you were replicating for those folks stuff they
9 already knew. They already knew how to do angles and
10 dangles. They already knew how to do this stuff.
11 You just told me you wanted to get training value on
12 it, but you pulled off people that had less
13 experience to put more experienced guys specifically
14 in a position, I assume, to make sure that you were
15 slick in the way you did angles and dangles for the
16 DVs.
17 THE WITNESS: Not slick, Admiral,
18 safe. The first time that I did large angles with
19 this crew, it was a 275-foot depth excursion. 275
20 feet, down to 675 feet.
21 BY VADM NATHMAN:
22 Q You have to characterize that for me you are in
23 pretty deep water off of Oahu.
24 A Yes, sir. We were in deep water.
25 Q I don't have any clue where you were at the
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55
1 depth and speed, but you just told me that -- it's an
2 oxymoron to say that you wanted to demonstrate. You
3 have new guys, you want to give them training value,
4 and then to pull off your highly experienced -- pull
5 off the less experienced helmsman to put on your best
6 diving officer of the watch on to make sure that you
7 can do it -- and then say you want to be safe, you
8 want to be safe, but you want to give training
9 experience -- but when you are giving that
10 opportunity, you retrograde, and then you just
11 identify it by some other characterization.
12 It's either for training or it's for safety --
13 what is it, Captain?
14 A Admiral, my message was lost in the delivery.
15 I will try and clarify that.
16 Q Okay.
17 A When I talked about performing the angles and
18 dangles, the ahead flank bell, and taking the ship to
19 test depth, that was to demonstrate to the new crew
20 members, whether it's my low (inaudible) or my mess
21 cook packing trash in the TD room -- not necessarily
22 the man sitting in the planes. That's the point I
23 want to make first, sir.
24 Why did the XO come in and make the
25 recommendation that we pull Petty Officer Feddeler
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56
1 from wherever he was and put him on the helm? That
2 was to ensure that I had my best possible helmsman
3 sitting in the chair, so that when we performed those
4 large rudder angles, it would be done correctly.
5 And the reason I mentioned that 275-foot depth
6 excursion which transpired shortly after I had taken
7 command was because my crew was not accustomed to
8 performing those particular maneuvers at high speed.
9 When I asked the control room party that day,
10 fellas, when was the last time you had done this?
11 Their response, sir, it's been a while. It's
12 been a while. And that's true.
13 Because we hadn't done them on EASTPAC, and we
14 hadn't done them certainly during SRA while the ship
15 was in dry dock.
16 So it was important that I put Petty Officer
17 Feddeler, who I know is a very talented and capable
18 helmsman in that chair, because he's the man that I
19 know that can maintain depth.
20 And despite the fact that he had a lot of
21 experience -- and I dare say more than most of my
22 helmsman -- even a qualified watchstander who is good
23 needs to have training. And that was the basis for
24 choosing him to sit in that chair that day, sir.
25 Q But you did that in an ad hoc way.
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1 You pulled him off in an ad hoc way.
2 If you are insisting that it's all for
3 training, and you want to expose your crew, you've
4 got angles and dangles, as I recall in the POD.
5 A Yes, sir.
6 Q So the ship knew it was going to do this.
7 Why wasn't there consideration of why don't we
8 take the helmsman that is going to be on there, that
9 is scheduled to be there on the watch bill?
10 Why don't we provide some training for him in
11 our expectations about how to handle the angles
12 angles? Why not say, hey, there is an opportunity
13 here to train this guy better?
14 You talked about losing depth. I expect when
15 you do angles and dangles -- I don't have experience
16 with this, but a very small amount -- that's a
17 difficult thing to do, and you would expect some
18 depth excursions, but you had very deep water in
19 which you were doing it in. So are those depth
20 excursions -- are they going to be so radical that
21 it's going to become unsafe that you have to put a
22 more experienced guy on, or why not take the
23 opportunity to take the scheduled helmsman, to send
24 him down with your more experienced diving officer of
25 the watch, go through it, prescript it, do a little
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58
1 bit of work, provide the training value. It doesn't
2 seem to make sense to me.
3 A I think I understand your question, Admiral.
4 On that particular day, our purpose was to
5 demonstrate the ship's capability to these
6 distinguished visitors. It was also an opportunity
7 for me to train my men.
8 I didn't specifically take the ship to sea on
9 that day, and knowingly take one of my junior
10 helmsman and put him in the chair, and say, okay,
11 shipmate, we're going to drive around for the next
12 fifteen minutes and perform large rudder angles so we
13 can hone and sharpen your skills. That wasn't the
14 purpose of the day's events.
15 The purpose of that event was to demonstrate to
16 our distinguished visitors what the ship's capability
17 was. And I could more effectively do that by having
18 a man that I knew at the requisite experience sit in
19 the chair. If the distinguished hadn't been on board
20 and I had had that day for commanding officer's
21 discretionary time, you bet, I would have put one of
22 my nuggets in that chair and said, okay, shipmate,
23 we're going to work on you today. We are going to
24 show you what it's like to drive around and do these
25 high speed maneuvers.
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1 But that wasn't the plan that day, sir.
2 Q Okay, let's move to one other area.
3 A Yes, sir.
4 Q Let's move to the chief of staff's embark, and
5 your interaction with the chief of staff while
6 underway.
7 The chief of staff -- I assume you've read his
8 standing orders in his memo?
9 A Yes, sir. I have.
10 Q Have you read that thoroughly?
11 A Admiral, I did in fact read it. And if it's an
12 exhibit, and I need to speak to it, then please
13 provide that.
14 Q I am going to ask you general questions about
15 it. I want to talk to you about the informality of
16 his visit, and how you saw it that way.
17 I will just tell you what I see it.
18 I saw you treat it -- the ship start to
19 respond, the XO and I believe the chief of the boat
20 met. The chief of staff they provided him cards
21 which were really the cards that reflected the
22 evolutions, as I recall, reflected the visitors that
23 day, and who was on watch. I think those were the
24 cards that were testified to earlier.
25 But it didn't -- you didn't bother to tell the
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1 chief of staff things that were important about
2 out-of-condition equipment, significant evolutions
3 you were going to do that day. Those were the
4 requirements that were in there.
5 In other words, to make it clear to him as a
6 senior officer on board, as the senior qualified
7 submariner on board, this is what you intended to do
8 and here were some significant issues you had -- for
9 instance, like doing an emergency dive. I don't
10 think you ever told the chief of staff you were going
11 to do an emergency dive, and I think clearly in his
12 memo there is an expectation if you are going to do
13 those kinds of things, and if you have significant
14 equipment out of commission, you would tell him about
15 that.
16 Could you tell me why the ship didn't following
17 through with the guidelines given by the Chief of
18 Staff Submarine Forces Pacific Fleet?
19 A Bear with me, Admiral, I want to repeat it.
20 You started off by stating that the XO and the
21 chief of the boat met with the chief of staff
22 provided cards which had been entered as an exhibit,
23 and in your question, asked me why I didn't bother to
24 tell the chief of staff about significant
25 evolutions. Here is what I intend to do. Warn him
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61
1 about the emergency deep, significant equipment that
2 may have been out of commission, and why the ship
3 didn't follow through.
4 Q Yes.
5 A Okay, sir. When the chief of staff arrived on
6 the morning of 9 February, I don't recall if it was
7 in the same van with the distinguished visitors or
8 not. His arrival preceded the time that I actually
9 went top side.
10 I was notified that he was there, so I
11 considered it important that I greet the chief of
12 staff on the pier.
13 Q It was his first time on board my submarine
14 going to sea. When I met with him, Captain
15 Brandhuber had stated that he had been looking
16 forward to this day for quite some time. But he had
17 had reservation about coming to the Greenville for
18 what he discussed as obvious reasons. I understood
19 that. Lieutenant Commander Tyler Meador, his
20 son-in-law, was my engineer while I was in command,
21 and the chief of staff was careful not to convey a
22 special interest, or convey to perhaps other boats or
23 whatever -- I don't know -- that there might be undue
24 favoritism due in fact to the part that his
25 son-in-law was on board the ship.
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1 Q Did you know that?
2 A Did I know what, sir?
3 Q That he was -- he didn't want to convey undue
4 favoritism?
5 A He mentioned to me that he said, you know, I've
6 been holding off, and I am paraphrasing because I
7 don't recall expressly what was said that day, but he
8 said, you know, I haven't intentionally come down
9 because of the fact that Tyler's on board, but I
10 wanted to take this opportunity today, because it was
11 his last underway on board the ship before he headed
12 out to perform our workup the following day, and our
13 inspection the 19th and the 20th of that month.
14 I understood that.
15 And I recognized what he was saying to me.
16 But I had seen that the XO had talked with the
17 chief of staff, and I asked him if there was anything
18 that I needed to do on that day.
19 Do I need to -- are there briefings. He said
20 no, carry out your routine, get your ship underway, I
21 am just going to walk around.
22 I made it a point to discuss with the chief of
23 staff and inquire if there were any expectations that
24 he had. Special reports, the answer was none.
25 Position reports that the quarter master
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63
1 prepares and provides -- was there to escort the
2 distinguished visitors, and that's how I viewed him
3 that day, not as an outside inspector -- not as a man
4 coming down on board my ship to critique, that I
5 needed to say, sir, while on board, would you please
6 conduct a navigation evaluation of my piloting
7 party. I asked him, do you want to join me on the
8 bridge? No, I don't need to go on the bridge.
9 Sir, would you like to join on the ship on the
10 inboard transit. I intend to take the (inaudible)
11 That sounds good, but I don't want to go on
12 the bridge on the out-bound leg. And I understand
13 that. He was provided three three-by-five cards, and
14 if I need to speak to those, we can provide that
15 exhibit, but in that, it clearly listed and provided
16 what the sequence of events were that day. It was
17 essentially a compilation of the plan of the day and
18 that schedule.
19 We also provided the chief of staff with the
20 three-by-five card that had the list of names of all
21 the distinguished visitors -- husbands and wives that
22 accompanied us that day for the cruise.
23 In addition, a three-by-five card which listed
24 the names of all the officers, LPOs, and our chiefs
25 so that in the event he had a chance to interact with
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64
1 the crew, he would know who the man was and his
2 assignment.
3 Here is what I intend to do. That was the
4 three-by-five card. That was the scheduled of the
5 days events, and it was clear that the purpose of
6 that operation for that day was to engage the
7 distinguished visitors and take them to sea.
8 Q Is an emergency dive a casualty maneuver?
9 A Sir, the emergency deep -- the emergency deep
10 -- I don't have the ship's systems manual, but to my
11 recollection, it falls under the caveat of what you
12 would consider a casualty maneuver.
13 Q And it was unexpected?
14 A The chief of staff, under testimony, if I
15 recall, said it caught him by surprise as it did my
16 other crew members.
17 Q As a courtesy, do you think even without the
18 chief of staff's memo that you are familiar with,
19 that as a courtesy, you should have mentioned to the
20 chief of staff that you were going to do an emergency
21 deep?
22 A Sir, it was my practice while I was in command
23 on that particular drill to not announce the
24 emergency deep.
25 And I'll explain.
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1 If the captain or any other officer including
2 my qualified officers of the deck -- the training
3 officer of the deck under-instruction were to
4 initiate an emergency deep for training -- they would
5 tell me. If I was in the control room or some other
6 place on the ship, and I heard that announcement
7 emergency deep, I would want to know what was going
8 on.
9 On this particular day, the chief of staff --
10 could I pull up the exhibit, please, that shows the
11 control room?
12 I am talking about Exhibit 6.
13 I was standing aft on the conn behind Number 2
14 Periscope after I had completed my periscope search,
15 and this is following the period that the ship had
16 transcended to or transited to periscope depth and
17 this was prior to the conduct of the emergency blow.
18 The chief of staff was over on the port side of
19 the control room in the vicinity of the fathometer
20 and the radar.
21 Q How many feet away is that?
22 A Sir, I don't have a scale drawing here.
23 And I can't tell you in exactness, but I would
24 say it's within probably six feet. Five or six
25 feet.
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66
1 Q Okay.
2 A And I called the emergency deep as a training
3 evolution. Backed up from the scope. I raised the
4 handles, I rotated the ring for the scope, and called
5 emergency deep. Walked up. Inserted the bull lock
6 pin on the periscope ring, and it was obvious that it
7 took the control room party by surprise, which for a
8 training evolution of this type, I intended to do.
9 We had no visual contacts. Sonar had reported
10 no threat contacts, as ESM had.
11 And so, the crew's expectation of this report,
12 emergency deep, would catch them by surprise, and
13 that's the intent of that training evolution.
14 Did I warn the chief of staff ahead of time?
15 No, sir, I didn't. But the words out of my mouth
16 after the chief of the watch called on the 1MC, and
17 he was prompted by the diving officer of the watch to
18 do that, sir, because he didn't immediately carry out
19 his actions -- was that this was for training, and
20 that was followed with the 1MC report that the
21 emergency deep was conducted for training.
22 Q My question was more to the point.
23 Why didn't you give the chief of staff a
24 courtesy that you were going to perform a significant
25 maneuver like an emergency deep just as a courtesy,
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67
1 tell him?
2 A Sir, if I had -- there was an opportunity for
3 me to in retrospect do that, perhaps in the morning,
4 but you know, I didn't think about it at the time.
5 When you're at periscope depth, and as a
6 captain, I've done this on numerous occasions with my
7 watch teams -- it's a spontaneous action to test the
8 alertness and the ability of the watchstanders to
9 carry through this act, and in this case, if I had
10 backed away from the periscope and looked at the
11 chief of staff and said, chief of staff, I am going
12 to conduct an emergency deep for training -- the
13 cat's out of the bag.
14 The cruise training benefit is reduced, so by
15 the very demeanor where I call out emergency deep --
16 walk casually to the periscope ring, lower the
17 periscope, and put the bull lock pin, there was no
18 sense of urgency. I have a close-aboard visual
19 contact, get the submarine down now -- the words came
20 out of my mouth, emergency deep.
21 Q Your chief of staff had been in control since
22 about what -- 13:00 -- 13 -- whatever it was?
23 A Sir, I don't know what time the chief of staff
24 entered control, or how long he had been there.
25 VADM NATHMAN: Okay. We'll recess until 1000.
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