The Scoop Deck – 2009

A rare year-end “honor” for LCS 1 and 2

December 29th, 2009 | Blogs Life at Sea merchant ships Photos Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing

The littoral combat ship Freedom, one of UglyShips.com's most-clicked ugly ships of 2009, moored in Annapolis in 2008 // Ken Mierzejewsk / Navy

If you love ships but you don’t follow the indispensable Ugly Ships blog, you’re missing out on some of the world’s most… ah… distinctive… vessels, including weird work boats, garish cruise ships and, our obvious favorite, warships. A couple of familiar ones have been “honored” on Ugly Ships’ year-end list of most-clicked links: the littoral combat ships Freedom and Independence, both of which were singled out this year for the site’s special brand of attention.

Here was its take on Freedom:

I had this one in my digital archives for quite a while now and every time I looked at her I saw the ugliness but I never had enough inspiration to write about her. Maybe because she is not only ugly but also pretty boring!

And here it was on Indy:

I have no idea in which war or conflict this ship is going to be but I’m pretty sure that as soon as the enemy see this beast approaching from the far horizon they will surrender on the spot, white flags all over… just to not get any more visibly acquainted with this monstrosity.

Yeeoowch! Are they really that bad?

Recognition for a Navy disaster

December 29th, 2009 | Historical Mishaps Morale ordnance Shore duty | Posted by Phil Ewing

The 1944 explosion at Port Chicago, Calif., destroyed two cargo ships and much of the surrounding port and naval base // NavHistHerCom

From our colleagues up in The Show comes an interesting story about a piece of naval history finally recognized: This fall, the Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial became a full-fledged member of the National Park System, meaning park rangers, more funding, and the whole treatment for the site of the Navy’s worst home-front disaster.

Port Chicago, Calif., was the site of a naval depot in World War II, where, because of the military’s segregationist policies, many of the cargo handlers and workers were black, supervised by white officers. On July 17, 1944, the port, two cargo ships, and much of the town were devastated by a massive explosion — felt as far away as Nevada — when something touched off the ordnance. Three hundred twenty people were killed, most of them black sailors, and when black survivors were ordered to start work again loading more ships, they refused, saying it was too unsafe. The incident showed the U.S. the ugliness of segregation in the military, which ended, by order of President Truman, in 1948.

This account of the disaster is pretty comprehensive, as is this Web site dedicated specifically to the victims and survivors. Be advised, though: If you’re on the West Coast and you’d like to see the site, you need to make an appointment.

The Navy name game in 2010

December 28th, 2009 | leadership Ships Washington | Posted by Phil Ewing

Seven ships will get names in 2010, according to the office of the secretary of the Navy, although they won't really get their names until their traditional champagne baths, as the Makin Island did in 2006 // Navy

Here’s just one delicious morsel from the feast you’ll find in this week’s print Navy Times on the newsstand, which includes a list of 18 things every sailor must know for 2010 — thing number 10 is the list of ships that will get names next year.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus will likely pick names in 2010 for the following ships, said his spokeswoman, Capt. Beci Brenton:

The third and final Zumwalt-class destroyer, DDG 1002, which, as you’ve seen here on the Deck, is already the subject of its own ship-name controversy.
Three littoral combat ships: LCS 5, LCS 6, and LCS 7. These ships probably all will be built according to the design that the Navy says it’ll pick this spring, either the Lockheed Martin Freedom class or the General Dynamics Independence class.
One Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo and ammunition ship: T-AKE 14.
One Virginia-class attack submarine: SSN 786.
One joint high-speed vessel: JHSV 4.

Time to play armchair SECNAV: What should Mabus name these vessels? The Navy has traditionally had conventions for all its ship classes, although they’ve become pretty loose (cruisers were cities, then battles; attack subs were fish, then cities, now states; except when they aren’t) and the ultimate power rests with the secretary.

So, Mister or Madame Secretary — let’s hear your choices.

Navy’s football advantage

December 28th, 2009 | Naval Academy Sports | Posted by Phil Ewing

Notre Dame defenders tried to stop then-sophomore Ricky Dobbs in a game in 2008. How much does Navy's service academy mystique help it in games against regular-college opponents? // MC2 Tommy Gilligan / Navy

If you pay any attention to Naval Academy football you’ve heard both fans and critics of the Midshipmen say a version of this: “Oh, isn’t it great/terrible that Navy plays so well even though it can’t attract the same caliber athletes who opt for a University of Florida, say, or a Louisiana State.” Dissuaded by the difficult life of a mid and then several years’ more service in the Navy or Marine Corps, top football-men prefer schools from which they can then be vacuumed into the NFL, the truism goes.

Well, maybe. Navy definitely has its advantages, too — among others, everybody just respects it so darn much. This phenomenon came up at the beginning of the Mids’ season against Ohio State, as you learned here on the Deck, and it has come up again at the end. As Navy gets set to take on the Missouri Tigers in the Texas Bowl, yet another sportswriter in yet another newspaper has written about being awestruck by the Midshipmen, and how, no matter how the game turns out, the final score will be fun to fun:

While Navy isn’t one of those presumptuously propped up as “America’s Team,” it is, in fact, America’s team in the more poignant and profound sense that all of the service academies are…. Perhaps for one reason more than any other: an understanding of the courageous commitment and accompanying risks.

All true, of course, and the home-team hacks don’t write that kind of stuff about Mizzou when it comes to town in the regular season. Which leads the observer to wonder: How much does the Mids’ mystique help them in civilian-college matchups? Do regular college teams hesitate against Navy, or do you think their hits are just as bone-crunching?

Back in action

December 28th, 2009 | Foreign navies Life at Sea Maritime operations Pirates Science and technology Ships Submarines | Posted by Phil Ewing

Not everyone got to spend part or all of last week off work for the Christmas holiday. Even Santa himself, having secured from present-delivery operations the night before, helped launch aircraft on the carrier Nimitz on Christmas Day // MC1 David Mercil / Navy

You can almost hear the metaphorical gas turbines starting back up here at the Center of Excellence, where people are eager to get back to work after the holiday. First, though, a quick run-through of some of the noteworthy things you might have missed amid yule-tiding last week:

It looks like India will finally take delivery of a Russian Akula-class attack submarine this spring — March, to be precise — but India and Russia have a poor history of completing such deals as originally planned.
The Chinese navy completed 150 missions as part of the international force that patrols the pirate-ridden Gulf of Aden off Somalia.
An ex-Navy officer can walk again after his stroke thanks to some high-speed new technology.
The fleet is apparently worried about the effect a new manatee habitat on ships and submarines operating off the East Coast.
Check out Galrahn’s motivational video about the littoral combat ship Independence, and get ready to RAWK!
If you haven’t been checking Bubblehead’s post and comments about the captain of the attack sub Buffalo, who was fired Dec. 20, take a look.

MCPOCG sends safety message

December 23rd, 2009 | Blogs Coast Guard Mishaps | Posted by Susan Schept

A 33-foot patrol boat similar to the one involved in a fatal accident over the weekend.//Photo by PA3 Henry G. Dunphy/Coast Guard

The Coast Guard is having a difficult December with two boating accidents — the latest on Sunday when a Coast Guard boat struck a recreational boat in San Diego and killed an 8-year-old boy. On Dec. 5, a Coast Guard boat collided with a commercial catamaran in Charleston Harbor, S.C., and two people were injured. Both incidents took place during or after Christmas parades on the water.

While the NTSB investigates the causes to both accidents, Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard Skip Bowen offered words of caution in his blog on Monday:

In the meantime I’m asking all of you to speak with your people regarding operational safety. This is a busy time of the year. In some areas the winter weather can create extremely dangerous conditions. ..We must operate safely regardless of the environment we find ourselves in.

Holiday warships

December 21st, 2009 | Blogs Life at Sea Morale Photos Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing

The destroyer Russell, seen here in 2007, has dominated Naval Station Pearl Harbor's yearly holiday-lights dressing competitions // Ensign Theresa Donnelly / Navy

If you enjoy looking at photographs of cruisers and destroyers — one of Scoop Deck’s favorite pastimes — you might be interested in this photo-set on Naval Surface Forces’ Facebook page, which shows the ships in this year’s “holiday lighting competition” at Naval Station San Diego. All the ships are dressed up with festive lights, each trying to out-do the others.

Do you have pictures of your ship, or your space, all rigged up with Christmas lights? Send them to us and they’ll go straight up onto the blog.

Vinson sailor goes to Africa, comes back with novel

December 21st, 2009 | individual augmentees Shore duty The Middle East | Posted by Phil Ewing

Ships' libraries could add a novel by a Navy author, who wrote after hours during an IA stint this year in Djibouti // PH2 Kurtis Korwan / Navy

If serving ashore as an individual augmentee is going to stay a reality of sailor life for a long time to come — which is what service officials keep saying — here’s a good example of how to make the best of it: IT2 Angela Bryant, of the carrier Carl Vinson, was sent to Djibouti on an IA assignment this year. The multinational base there, Camp Lemonier, is one of the hottest and smelliest places in the world, but did that bother Bryant? No. She used her time on the Horn of Africa to write a book:

“I started writing when I was 15 for the fun of it,” said Bryant. “I wanted to become a writer to put more realistic books out there. There were variety of books I wanted to read out on bookshelves, and I didn’t see them out.”
As an IA, Bryant worked during the day and wrote four to five hours at night.
“You really don’t have the time, but I tried to allot a time,” said Bryant. “I love writing. It’s a passion and a hobby for me and to see my book published and on the shelves, it’s an accomplishment for me.”
Publishing the book was a long process for Bryant. She designed the cover, layout and pictures. Once the first draft was complete, she found a publishing company that bound and published the book, which is now available online.

You can check out Bryant’s self-published novel, “Love’s Triangle,” here, and even read an excerpt for free.

Sunset for San Jose and the T-AFS

December 18th, 2009 | Military Sealift Command Ships | Posted by Phil Ewing

The combat stores ship San Jose ended its career Friday in Hawaii as the last T-AFS in the fleet // MC3 Sarah E. Bitter / Navy

The combat stores ship San Jose ended nearly four decades in the Navy and Military Sealift Command on Friday, in a ceremony that not only commemorated the end of its service, but the departure of all the fleet’s combat stores ships:

San Jose will be deactivated from the Navy in January 2010 and is the last of eight combat stores ships to deactivate from MSC’s Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force. These ships delivered food, spare parts, mail, fuel and other supplies to U.S. Navy ships at sea. San Jose and five other combat stores ships were originally crewed by sailors until they were transferred to MSC in the 1990s and shifted to civil service mariner crewing. The others came directly to MSC from the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary in the early 1980s.

These days, MSC is getting a steady stream of Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo and ammunition ships, known as T-AKEs. They’re big, advanced, versatile replacements, but it’ll be a long time before MSC crews feel about their new-fangled ships the way they do about the T-AFSes. An engineer aboard the Lewis and Clark-class T-AKE Robert E. Peary once dreamily recalled to Navy Times that aboard the combat stores ship Spica, he could tell how fast the ship was going just by listening to the sound of its main engines.

On the other hand, T-AKEs have a complex, computerized electric drive system, and the salty MSC mariners grumble that, to run it, they need to be programmers instead of engineers. Progress, you might say.

(If you really want to get a sense about how MSC mariners feel about their ships, you have to check this out.)

Santa Claus loves the Navy, and vice versa

December 18th, 2009 | Aviation Life at Sea Maritime operations Photos SEALs Submarines | Posted by Phil Ewing

MC1 Todd A. Schaffer / Navy

Although this might rankle some people down in Millington, there are other global forces for good on this planet besides the Navy. There is, for one, Santa Claus, the one-man international, integrated present-transport and joy-delivery enterprise, whose operational tempo usually peaks around this time of year. Being separate global forces for good, however, doesn’t mean being adversaries: The Navy and Santa actually have a lot in common.

For example, like the Navy, no one understands Santa’s budget process. Like the Navy and Marine Corps, Santa makes his headquarters at a highly austere maritime location — FOB North Pole. Like Navy fighter jets, Santa flies through the night sky at tremendous speeds, although instead of Joint Direct Attack Munitions, Santa’s ordnance payload consists of toys and gifts.

It’s appropriate, then, that the paths of these global goodness-delivery forces often intersect. Santa likes to hitch rides on submarines returning from deployment — presumably because they picked him up on the Arctic ice pack