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1 DAY 12 SESSION 7 MARCH 20, 2001 1:00 p.m.
2 ---oOo---
3 VADM NATHMAN: This court is now in
4 session. Counsel for the court.
5 CAPT MACDONALD: Let the record
6 reflect that all members, parties, and counsel are
7 again present. The court has no procedural matters,
8 sir.
9 VADM NATHMAN: Counsel for the
10 parties, procedural matters?
11 MR. GITTINS: No, sir.
12 LCDR STONE: No, sir.
13 LCDR FILBERT: No, sir.
14 VADM NATHMAN: Commander Waddle,
15 before we begin questioning, earlier you stated that
16 your requested testimonial immunity has taken -- and
17 I will quote -- "reasonable precautions in the event
18 that the international and political environment
19 dictated that I be sacrificed to an unwarranted
20 court-martial." Unquote.
21 I want to be clear.
22 Our mandate is contained in the charge to the
23 members of the appointing order given by Admiral
24 Fargo. That order is to investigate, fairly and
25 impartially, all the facts and circumstances in this
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1 case. That is the only thing that matters to this
2 court.
3 You also stated that the court felt your
4 testimony was not essential or material to the
5 conclusion of this court's investigation.
6 That comment misses the point as to why the
7 court recommended its granting you immunity. You
8 were given the unique privilege to command the USS
9 Greenville. As stated in its recommendations to
10 Admiral Fargo, the court does not support the setting
11 of either a precedent or a perception that commanding
12 officers will only provide a full and accurate
13 accounting for mishaps at sea unless they had been
14 granted immunity.
15 Admiral Sullivan.
16 RADM SULLIVAN: Commander, what I
17 want to do is pick up where we left off and just to
18 get us all on the same page, we're trying to -- I was
19 trying to walk you through the evolutions of that
20 afternoon of the 9th, and we had gone through the
21 point where we're at high speed doing angles and
22 followed by high changes in rudder and high speed.
23 And part of our discussion was the SA or the
24 situational awareness that you felt you had, and
25 discussed somewhat about what your crew had at the
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1 time.
2 During the evolutions of angles and high speed
3 turns, what I took from what you told me was that you
4 were giving pretty explicit direction to the officer
5 of the deck; is that correct?
6 THE WITNESS: Sir, I didn't say
7 explicit direction. I told Mr. Coen that he wanted
8 him to achieve a fifteen degree up-angle, a 20-degree
9 up-angle, and make his depth 165 or 175 feet,
10 whatever those orders were. That's what I told him
11 to do.
12 I made it clear to Mr. Coen the angle, the tack
13 that I wanted placed on the submarine, as well as
14 what depth I wanted him to achieve.
15 RADM SULLIVAN: Did you feel that
16 you had the situational awareness to -- that your
17 officer of the deck had the situational awareness to
18 be able to follow that routine of, here is an order,
19 an ordered angle or an ordered course, or an ordered
20 rudder during this evolution?
21 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. I thought
22 that I had the situational awareness, and I also
23 thought that the officer of the deck had the
24 situational awareness.
25 In an earlier line of questioning referring to
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1 Exhibit 4, you asked me if I thought that driving the
2 ship on a northerly course was good for resolving
3 target motion analysis. I wanted to make it clear,
4 Admiral, that if that's all that we had done, then
5 no, sir, that wasn't adequate, and it would have been
6 prudent to drive in an easterly westerly direction,
7 putting that speed across the line of sight so you
8 get a better solution.
9 RADM SULLIVAN: Okay, thank you.
10 You just mentioned that you thought in your mind --
11 and this is really what I am trying to get from you
12 -- not commenting if it's right or wrong -- but you
13 thought your officer of the deck had the situational
14 awareness he required to do his job.
15 What led you to that conclusion?
16 THE WITNESS: Admiral, I base that
17 on prior experience with Mr. Coen having watched him
18 operate as an officer of the deck, and I have always
19 been confident in the past that he has maintained
20 that situational awareness.
21 RADM SULLIVAN: Did he ever question
22 you or -- the word "object" is too strong -- but say,
23 sir, I think we need to do such-and-such prior to the
24 next step -- did any of that type of interchange with
25 you?
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1 THE WITNESS: No sir. No dialogue,
2 not pertaining to ship maneuvers which would have
3 enhanced target.
4 RADM SULLIVAN: I am just talking
5 about during the evolution itself of angles and
6 dangles.
7 THE WITNESS: No, sir. No
8 discussion.
9 BY RADM SULLIVAN:
10 Q I would like to continue to walk down the
11 timeline.
12 After the high speed maneuvers, which ended
13 with you, I believe, being at 400 feet coming up to
14 prepare to clear baffles at 150 feet.
15 Can you give me what -- or I will ask it this
16 way. Can you describe what direction you gave Mr.
17 Coen at this point?
18 A Yes, sir. I told Mr. Coen that I wanted him to
19 make preparations to proceed to periscope depth and
20 get to periscope depth in five minutes.
21 I told him that knowing that that would be a
22 goal, an objective for him.
23 He's a very thorough officer, and if I had left
24 it to his own accord without giving him an objective
25 to work towards, which was brief, I understand that
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1 -- and facts have also shown that he didn't achieve
2 that accomplishment, he didn't make it to periscope
3 depth in five minutes, but I was trying to convey to
4 Mr. Coen my desire to move through this evolution
5 efficiently.
6 Q To get from 400 feet to periscope depth, in
7 five minutes it's certainly achievable, but how
8 difficult is that to do?
9 A Sir, it wasn't 400 feet, we were at 150 feet,
10 when I gave that order. I didn't time him. I want
11 you to get to periscope depth -- I don't recall
12 telling him, I want you to get to periscope depth in
13 five minutes with the ship at 400 feet.
14 Q But even so, let's take it from there -- during
15 that five minutes, how hard is that to do?
16 A That's aggressive, sir.
17 Q For someone of his seniority, I would -- I
18 don't think -- or at least in my opinion I will ask
19 you yours -- his ability to be able to perform that
20 after having just slowed down, after reestablishing
21 his situational awareness, your ship's situational
22 awareness, how difficult is that?
23 A For this scenario, Admiral, I considered that
24 to be achievable, and that was based on, I need to
25 give you a little bit more information here.
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1 When we performed the large angles and dangles,
2 I explained to the visitors and passed on the 1MC the
3 importance of having the ship stowed for sea.
4 Unfortunately, the little can that I had that my
5 daughter made in my state room -- (indiscernable) --
6 so after we secured from the angles and dangles, I
7 told Mr. Coen, come up to 150 feet, and slow down.
8 He ordered full bell, and I said, no, ring up ahead
9 two-thirds.
10 I went into my state room, put them back in the
11 can, and put it on the shelf adjacent to my desk.
12 At that point, I walked forward in the main
13 passageway, and I am pointing here to Exhibit 6, and
14 entered the sonar room as I had done, prior to the
15 angles and dangles, entered through the forward door,
16 stopped by again and inquired as to the contact
17 picture, and observed that Petty Officer Bowie was
18 making his record to Petty Officer McGiboney that
19 they were regaining the previous contacts.
20 I then exited the sonar room and came back into
21 the control room, and assumed the position here on
22 the forward starboard side of the conn, and gave Mr.
23 Coen that direction.
24 Q So when you were in sonar, that was when the
25 ship was regained its ability to see the contacts?
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1 A Yes, sir. That's when we were slowing and
2 coming shallower to 150 feet.
3 Q And no maneuvers had been conducted other than
4 a change in depth?
5 A No, no, maneuvers other than slowing and
6 changing depth to 150 feet.
7 Q I certainly think, through, this reading your
8 standing orders which are standard standing orders
9 for the Type Commander -- it certainly -- it's
10 guidance for you and direction for your juniors --
11 that talk about legs, baffle clearing legs on the
12 order of three to five minutes.
13 So if I do the math, I get -- I come to the
14 conclusion that you put your officer of the deck in a
15 situation that he can't possibly do, following your
16 direction.
17 Is that a wrong assumption?
18 A Sir, based on the information in my standing
19 orders which does say -- it's in Standing Order 6,
20 TMA leg should be three to five minutes, there is no
21 way he could have achieved that five-minute goal -- I
22 gave him five minutes as an incentive, as an
23 objective for him to work his preparatory events in
24 getting the ship to periscope depth so he would make
25 a more efficient effort in achieving that objective.
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1 I knew that Mr. Coen couldn't get to PD in five
2 minutes. I doubt that any of my experienced officer
3 of the decks could have gotten to PD in five
4 minutes.
5 VADM NATHMAN: To ask a follow-up on
6 that. If Mr. Coen's reputation as being very
7 thorough and meticulous -- and sometimes we read
8 between the lines and we take that to be slow
9 sometimes -- I mean, its implied, it was implied by
10 other watchstanders -- but how is that consistent
11 then with, you know, you had the TMA leg
12 requirement. He's obviously meticulous. He
13 understands exactly your standing orders.
14 Did he try and reconcile your goal, and the
15 standing orders that he's working under because he
16 still has the deck, right? He's still the officer of
17 the deck. That's one question.
18 Then the other one is, how do you take
19 advantage, then, of a watchstander, particularly an
20 officer of the deck that is thorough, if you don't
21 give him the time to be thorough?
22 THE WITNESS: Admiral, Lieutenant
23 Coen maintained the conn and the deck throughout this
24 whole evolution. He did not relinquish conn to me.
25 When I gave him that order to get to periscope
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1 depth, this in that abbreviated period of time, it
2 was my objective to give him a goal to work towards,
3 knowing that that was not achievable.
4 How did I take advantage of Mr. Coen? It was
5 not my intent to take advantage of Mr. Coen, but to
6 move the evolution along.
7 I wanted to get the ship to periscope depth to
8 prepare us to the MBT blow, and in hindsight, had I
9 given Mr. Coen and the ship control party that time,
10 it would have made a difference.
11 But at the time, in my judgment, with my
12 situational awareness, and what I knew the contact
13 position to be, or positions to be, I thought it was
14 a correct -- correct action.
15 VADM NATHMAN: We've had that
16 discussion about when you -- I thought we had this
17 discussion when we come out of angles and dangles,
18 there is a period of time to build situational
19 awareness.
20 Now, let's -- just so I can understand -- there
21 is a period of time then to build situational
22 awareness whether you are going to periscope depth or
23 not out of angles and dangles. But there is also the
24 standing requirement to do two TMA legs in your
25 standing orders of three to five minutes. So let's
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1 go to the minimum of that.
2 That's three minutes on each leg, and it goes
3 to Admiral Sullivan's point, that is six minutes, but
4 that's still while you were at 150 feet. It doesn't
5 include the ascent to periscope depth -- which I
6 don't know how long that takes -- a minute, a minute
7 and-a-half -- I am not sure -- a minute and-a-half?
8 THE WITNESS: It could, sir. It
9 could take longer depending on the ballasting of the
10 ship.
11 VADM NATHMAN: So I think the
12 minimum we are talking about there is 7 and-a-half to
13 8 minutes.
14 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
15 VADM NATHMAN: So can you explain to
16 me -- it seems like the conflict again, you have a
17 thorough officer of the deck that is -- you put him
18 into conflict with your own standing orders, although
19 you, as the commanding officer, can choose to
20 override your own standing orders, but this is a DV
21 embark. This is not a tactical situation.
22 And so I am trying to understand what the goal
23 is going to do for the officer of the deck, and did
24 he try and reconcile what is a five-minute goal with
25 a easily 7 and-a-half to 8-minute evolution to do it
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1 properly and thoroughly, which was his reputation?
2 THE WITNESS: Clearly, doing the
3 math, not achievable. It couldn't be done. And I
4 agree with you, Admiral.
5 But as I stated, when I exited the sonar room
6 and sonar was regaining the two contacts that we had
7 previously held, and I addressed the fact that I had
8 front-loaded that situational awareness prior to the
9 conduct of the angles and dangles here on Exhibit 4
10 starting at 1316, and concluding with the end of the
11 large rudder turns at 1331 -- that fifteen minute
12 period, I considered that the contact picture had not
13 changed from the brief period I was in sonar.
14 I was wrong, Admiral. I was wrong.
15 VADM NATHMAN: Let's go back to the
16 contact picture here. You were never aware of a
17 course and speed of Sierra 13, right?
18 THE WITNESS: No, sir. Well, I was
19 aware of the contact range. I tell you I can't
20 recall the exact course and speed, but I do remember
21 when I looked at the fire control display from the
22 line of sight diagram, that the arrow was going up.
23 It showed something driving towards or parallel to
24 the coast. I can't tell you that I remembered it was
25 11 knots. I just don't remember.
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1 VADM NATHMAN: Okay, but to go back
2 there. I don't recall any report by the FTOW or
3 validation or a team -- sonar FTOW/OOD description of
4 the course and speed, because there was no plot on
5 the CEP at that time.
6 And I am trying to understand, so that we
7 haven't really reconciled or we hadn't resolved
8 Sierra 13's course and speed?
9 THE WITNESS: That's true, Admiral.
10 There was no open discussion that I heard while I was
11 in control between the FTOW and the OOD or myself
12 regarding that solution.
13 VADM NATHMAN: Okay.
14 RADM SULLIVAN: Commander, to follow
15 on with this discussion, again, I'm trying to
16 understand what was going through your mind.
17 What was your rush? You talked earlier about
18 you knew you were late, but it didn't seem to bother
19 you that much. What was your rush?
20 THE WITNESS: No rush, Admiral.
21 Again, I gave Mr. Coen what I considered to be
22 a goal. I didn't question it's achievability in
23 doing the math, Admiral. But I gave him a goal, I
24 want you to get to periscope depth in five minutes.
25 I wasn't rushed. If I had been rushed, I would
144
1 have put the photographs I signed, the DV pictures I
2 signed, aside. I would have said to the XO that we
3 can't afford to be late, we have to hurry up and do
4 -- none of that was ever discussed. I didn't say
5 those words. I was not rushed, Admiral.
6 RADM SULLIVAN: But commander, as a
7 CO of the submarine, if you say you want, you know, a
8 compartment painted, you know, blue and white, the
9 next day, it's going to be blue and white.
10 You know that.
11 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
12 RADM SULLIVAN: And when you say to
13 a young officer and his team, give him that
14 challenge, what I see is all the things that are only
15 done on Greenville according to the testimony we've
16 heard -- the brief, watchstanders going to periscope
17 depth -- was that done?
18 THE WITNESS: No, sir. That was not
19 done. The watchstander brief was not performed.
20 RADM SULLIVAN: Was there a -- we
21 already discussed the lack of -- of time on each of
22 the TMA legs. That wasn't done, correct?
23 THE WITNESS: Sir, we didn't spend a
24 full three minutes on each TMA leg. I agree with
25 that.
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1 RADM SULLIVAN: But as Captain Kyle
2 showed, if you had stayed on that, the fact that you
3 had a fairly close contact, his bearing rate I
4 believe was over 10. That would have been easily
5 distinguishable by anyone who was a party of your
6 party, correct?
7 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. And if I
8 had stayed on that leg for three minutes, and if I
9 had seen that leg, I would have known what that
10 meant, and would have taken action to respond to
11 that, as would have my watchstanders.
12 RADM SULLIVAN: And so your standing
13 orders which are from the Type Commander, both
14 fleets, no matter where you go in your submarine that
15 the United States has -- we all do it the same way.
16 Why did you set aside these principles that have been
17 founded in blood, lesons learned by people ahead of
18 us -- what was the rush? Why did you give that type
19 of word that caused indisputably to have your watch
20 team forego -- not do the type of things they are
21 used to doing?
22 THE WITNESS: The five minute time
23 limit was artificially imposed by me on Mr. Coen.
24 Looking back at it, Admiral, that was wrong.
25 The second thing, as I mentioned when I exited
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1 the sonar room and came into control, knowing that we
2 had regained what I thought were the two previously
3 held contacts to the northwest and northeast, I
4 didn't think that the contact picture had changed.
5 I was confident that those contacts remained
6 close along the Oahu coast, operating in that
7 vicinity. And as such, I didn't have the ASVDU to
8 look at, and I thought that the leg that we were on,
9 the 340 course was long enough.
10 When I considered that it was long enough, it
11 was at that time when I told Mr. Coen, conduct your
12 baffle clear maneuver. Let's come right to -- I
13 think I told him come right, to course 120.
14 RADM SULLIVAN: You went into sonar
15 and looked at the sonar display, which as we've
16 discussed a number of times was the only place that
17 was available -- you looked at it when the picture
18 was just starting to develop.
19 I thought as a commanding officer or conning
20 officer going to periscope depth -- the purpose of a
21 baffle clear was to change course to, one, unmask
22 possible contacts on your baffles; or second, to
23 force a change in bearing rate so you could see it.
24 And so if you didn't go back -- I am having a
25 hard time with this -- if you didn't go back and look
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1 at sonar after you conducted the maneuver, what value
2 was it to even look at sonar?
3 THE WITNESS: The value of looking
4 at sonar or stopping by in sonar was to determine
5 what contacts sonar had.
6 I agree, it did not stay in sonar and pause on
7 that initial TMA leg. I paused to check to see how
8 the sonar picture looked, to see what the sonar
9 supervisor and broad band operator were regaining.
10 They were regaining contact as the ship was
11 coming shallow to 150 feet, one at 150 feet, and I
12 considered for the time lapse -- and I can't tell you
13 exactly how many minutes it was -- but my gut feel
14 was that it had been long enough -- I then gave Mr.
15 Coen to come to 120 to perform the baffle clear so we
16 could see what was behind us.
17 And by coming right to course 120, it was also
18 my intent, Admiral, if we look at Exhibit 4, that I
19 provide speed across the line of sight. Granted, not
20 all my speed is across the line of sight. If I
21 stayed on course 90 -- 100 -- would have been or
22 initially being on a 340 leg, but I chose to come
23 right to 120. And in doing so, I thought at the time
24 that I was providing an adequate speed across the
25 line of sight to drive any visible (?) bearing right
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1 to the contacts that were to the northwest and to the
2 northeast.
3 Q If you were trying to -- again, I will go back
4 before we proceed here.
5 Certainly, there are times when you have to
6 get to periscope depth quickly, nobody who has had
7 command of a submarine would disagree with that.
8 But I don't understand why didn't you just take
9 the conn from the officer of the deck if you felt you
10 needed to get up that quickly.
11 A Sir, when a commanding officer takes the conn
12 from a officer of the deck, that causes embarrassment
13 to that officer if it's not an emergency or a
14 tactical problem.
15 I've had the conn taken away from me as a
16 junior officer, and that caused me great
17 embarrassment. I would not do that to Mr. Coen if I
18 -- I would do it if I felt it was necessary, and I've
19 done that on one occasion in command, and once only,
20 where I've taken the conn, and that was to get the
21 ship to the surface to preclude an out-of-area
22 incident.
23 But in this case, Admiral, Mr. Coen in my mind,
24 watching him, was doing his job. I unfortunately and
25 regrettably gave him that artificial time limit.
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1 And knowing what I know now, if I hadn't done
2 that, we won't be here today having this
3 conversation.
4 RADM SULLIVAN: But captain, I
5 think I agree with what you said, but there is more
6 to it. When you put your officer of the deck, your
7 representative, in a situation that's over his head,
8 or he's incapable you have an obligation as a
9 commanding officer to assume that responsibility, and
10 as Admiral Konetzni talked about a few days ago, when
11 you decided to put it on your shoulders, you'd better
12 be right.
13 THE WITNESS: And Admiral, I was
14 wrong.
15 RADM SULLIVAN: During this baffle
16 clear a new contact emerged near the end of the 340
17 leg, as I recall. Sierra 14.
18 Based on your ship's track, there was no
19 further analysis other than continuing to -- which
20 you had directed as a course to clear baffles at 120
21 -- can you shed some light on why you wouldn't have
22 done extra TMA to resolve that target's ranging?
23 THE WITNESS: Yes, Admiral, it
24 wasn't clear to me that Sierra 14 was a new contact.
25 And the reason for it is -- and again, you know, if I
150
1 had had the ASVDU on the conn, I could have seen 12,
2 13 -- all the other numbers.
3 You know, because I didn't have that, I didn't
4 have that Sierra number ingrained in my brain. I
5 remembered here, pointing to Exhibit 4, before we
6 commenced the angles and dangles. I had two
7 contacts -- one in the northwest and you one in the
8 northeast. If I had the ASVDU, I would have known
9 those Sierra numbers. But I didn't.
10 As such, when we made the maneuver on the
11 course at 120, and sonar reported I had two contacts,
12 and from the testimony I heard Sierra 14 Sierra 13 --
13 it was two contacts, and I didn't recognize it as a
14 new number. And that's the problem. If I had
15 recognized it, I would have acted upon it, and I
16 don't think it was clear to the officer of the deck
17 either. Why, because not having the ASVDU, it
18 handicapped us.
19 VADM NATHMAN: You've testified
20 before that you've had problems with the ASVDU
21 before, it's gone out of commission?
22 THE WITNESS: Yes, sir.
23 VADM NATHMAN: So I assume it's
24 happened to you while you were underway doing
25 training, you're being tactical, and I assume you've
151
1 also had a lot more contacts than three at a time.
2 So there is something about you know the way
3 you are brought up -- you are brought up as a
4 submariner, you have had a lot of experience as
5 officer of the deck, experiences at XO, experiences
6 at department head, experiences at junior officer,
7 and one of the things -- anyone that on a bridge or
8 has the deck, works a lot -- when you get a new
9 contact, particularly in your world -- that Sierra 14
10 is like a bell going off. It's like a gong. It's
11 got to go -- a gong going off in the head of the
12 people in control. So when that gong goes off, it
13 seems to me that that doesn't quite reconcile the
14 fact that, well, I don't have the ASVDU. I've
15 operated without the ASVDU before, and high density
16 contacts before without the ASVDU.
17 Now you are in low contact density. Now you
18 got a contact, and no bell goes off?
19 THE WITNESS: Admiral -- I stated
20 that the ASVDU has failed before. When that occurs,
21 the ship does two things. You remain deep and repair
22 it, or you come to periscope depth where you have
23 your ability to determine your contacts and fix it
24 there.
25 I can't tell you exactly what we did when it
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1 broke the previous time. It may have happened when
2 we were in port. But your point is well made.
3 When the new contacts Sierra 14 was gained, the
4 sonar supervisor knew that, the broad band operator
5 knew that. I dare say that that unqualified
6 under-instruction watch knew that, as well as my
7 FTOW. The teamwork broke. No one raised the flag.
8 No one said, hey, we need to get another leg of data
9 on this guy.
10 VADM NATHMAN: Let me understand the
11 teamwork here then.
12 Sonar made that report -- that's part of the --
13 so they made a report. The FTOW acted on it, in
14 terms of -- you said he got distracted trying to
15 prosecute Sierra 14 -- yesterday in his testimony,
16 spent a lot of time, we were trying to work out that
17 fire control solution.
18 He spent less and less time on Sierra 13.
19 So what was the conn doing? What was the
20 officer of the deck and you doing with Sierra 14?
21 I'm sure -- Lieutenant Junior Coen heard it.
22 You said you didn't hear it. But how did the conn
23 react to the new report? Did he mention to you,
24 captain, we've got a new contact, we need another
25 leg?
153
1 THE WITNESS: No, sir. The officer
2 of the deck didn't mention that I recognize the new
3 contact and we need another leg. What I know I
4 thought -- two contacts going into the baffle clear
5 maneuver, two contacts coming out, the same guys.
6 I was wrong.
7 If the fire control technician of the watch had
8 recognized this as a new contact, as well as the
9 sonar supervisor, I would have expected some backup
10 when the next conn proceed to periscope depth,
11 knowing we've done no TMA maneuver on this guy to
12 determine the contact range and whether or not this
13 guy is close or far away.
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