Navy applauds leader for top submarine force

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

In 2001, Rear Adm. John B. Padgett III took command of a U.S. Pacific Fleet submarine force still reeling from the accidental sinking of a Japanese fishing boat.

Rear Adm. John B. Padgett III, left, received the Distinguished Service Medal from Adm. Walter F. Doran, commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet, at a change-of-command ceremony Thursday. Padgett was commander of the submarine force for U.S. Pacific Fleet. JO3 Corwin M. Colbert • U.S. Navy

At a change-of-command ceremony Thursday at Pearl Harbor, Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Walter F. Doran said Padgett handled it all with aplomb.

Doran told several hundred Navy personnel and family members that because of the training Padgett put in place and hands-on leadership, "the submarine force has risen to a position of professionalism that is the highest that I have ever seen it."

"You've done a terrific job," Doran said during the ceremony aboard the attack submarine USS La Jolla. "You have ... a lot to be proud of, and you will be missed here on the waterfront."

Padgett is retiring and moving back to Virginia with his wife, Bobbie, after a 34-year Navy career.

Replacing him in charge of 11,000 Navy and civilian personnel, 27 attack submarines and eight ballistic missile subs in Hawai'i, Washington, California and Guam is Rear Adm. Paul F. Sullivan, most recently director of the Submarine Warfare Division on the staff of the chief of naval operations.

Sullivan, a 1970 Naval Academy graduate, also served on the court of inquiry looking into the Feb. 9, 2001, sinking of the fishing training vessel Ehime Maru by the submarine USS Greeneville. He earlier commanded the attack submarine USS Birmingham when it was homeported at Pearl Harbor.

Following custom, the change of command focused on the accomplishments of Padgett, who received the Distinguished Service Medal for exceptionally meritorious service.

Following the Greeneville accident — in which nine Japanese men and boys died — Padgett made the accident a case study for greater safety standards for submariners.

The Pearl Harbor submarine USS Key West subsequently was the first U.S. Navy ship on station in the Arabian Gulf after the terrorist attacks. With three other Pearl Harbor subs — Cheyenne, Columbia and Louisville — it fired Tomahawks during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Padgett said submarines accounted for 30 percent of the 800 Tomahawks launched into Iraq.

Meanwhile, with the western Pacific still a military concern, the submarines Chicago, Los Angeles, Honolulu, San Francisco, City of Corpus Christi and Bremerton "stood the watch, kept the peace, and ensured that that part of the world remained stable," Padgett said.

He also was credited with efforts to further integrate air, surface and submarine forces to counter threats to battle groups from new diesel submarines that can run quietly on batteries and stay submerged for weeks.

New office space was opened in June at Pearl Harbor for Task Force 12 and the Theater Undersea Warfare Operations Center, which receive and decipher real-time data on submarine threats and coordinates information from multiple sources.

"We have exercised this capability and we are placing it into the (western Pacific), where it is needed," Padgett said. "The exercises indicate that the actions we have taken are the proper actions on a stair-step approach to undersea warfare excellence."

As Congress debates how many new Virginia-class submarines to build, Sullivan said programming and budgeting for the Navy's needs is a difficult task.

"You are trying to predict the future, and it's a constant struggle for resources," he said. "But it is clear to the leaders of our Navy, the leaders of our nation, that maintaining undersea superiority is paramount."

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.