Unofficial transcript: Day 4, Session 4
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SESSION 4 MARCH 8, 2001 1 p.m.
VADM. NATHMAN: This Court is now in order.
CAPT. MACDONALD: Let the record reflect that
all members parties and counsel are again present. Recall to
Rear Admiral Griffiths to the stand.
Again, a reminder this afternoon for everyone to speak
slowly and into the microphones to allow our interpreter to do
the best job they can. Thank you.
Admiral Griffiths, if you would retake your seat in the
witness box, and again I remind you you're still under oath.
THE WITNESS: Understand.
CAPT. MACDONALD: Mr. Gittins.
MR. GITTINS: Thank you, sir.
Q I'm not exactly sure where I left off, but I believe I
was talking about command climate with you, sir. You would
acknowledge, and I think you suggested to the -- to this
investigatory body that they should review the command climate
on board the USS Greeneville, correct, sir?
A Correct.
Q To that end you would acknowledge that you had
insufficient information to assess critically and completely
the command climate on USS Greeneville, correct?
A Correct.
Q In that regard you indicated that the ship made some
mistakes, perhaps mistakes in judgment, is that accurate, sir?
A Yes.
Q Do you have, as a result of your investigation, sir, did
you uncover any evidence that the CO, XO or OOD were not
giving their best honest efforts to operate the ship safely?
A No.
Q With respect to the mistakes and perhaps some mistakes
of judgment, I believe you testified earlier that no -- none
of the single measures that you've described to this board
were egregious, just short of where you would want them to be,
is that a fair characterization?
A Yes.
Q You would acknowledge that the Commanding Officer in
using his judgment and evaluating the circumstances based on
his training may perform the procedures as he believes them
required to be performed under the circumstances, would you
not, sir?
A In a general sense?
Q Yes, sir.
A Yes.
Q In terms of back up of the Commanding Officer, sir, have
you ever heard any submariners say that the most dangerous
time in a CO's career is at the two year mark of his command?
A Yes, I have.
Q Tell the members about that, sir.
A I overheard indirectly that Admiral Fargo made this
comment to, I don't know to who, but I think at least to
Admiral Konetzni that that's the point in a -- I think he was
looking over his -- Admiral Fargo's career and people he has
known and probably also from his own perspective.
Q Yes, sir.
A And he was saying that that's the point in a CO's career
where you've experienced most of the things you're going to
experience in command at least once, and you've therefore
built up the confidence that that experience brings and you're
therefore probably at your most confident level and you're not
yet in the final days of your command where you may become
more cautious because you're saying, boy, I've had a great
command tour here and now I don't want anything to go wrong in
the end hour to change that. So, it's kind of before you're
in that final mode, but yet you're in that original mode and
this is I think an opinion of Admiral Fargo's that he's
espoused.
Q Have you heard --
A And I might add I don't necessarily agree with that
opinion.
Q Yes, sir.
Have you heard that that same phrase it's a dangerous --
the two year point is a dangerous time in a commander's years
with respect to the way the crew may view the officer, having
served for two years? Have you heard anything along those
lines?
A No.
Q Okay, sir.
You indicated during your testimony and redirect, sir,
that as a CO it's important to have the crew back you up.
A Yes.
Q To your knowledge, based on your investigation that you
conducted, is there any reason you're aware of that the Fire
Control Technician of the watch could not have CINC Commander
Waddle of a contact solution at four thousand yards when he
computed it?
A I think he was able to do so and did not. I think that
the FT of the watch thought there were factors that made it
more difficult than normal for him to do that, and -- in my
opinion he could have overcome those factors and made the
report.
VADM. NATHMAN: Mr. Gittins, do you mind if I
ask a follow up question?
Q What do you think those factors would be, Admiral that
make it more difficult for him to report?
A Basically two things. One, the physical presence of so
many additional people in control, the visitors blocking view
and physical access from -- as compared to normal. And
secondly, the manner in which the Commanding Officer worked
directly with sonar to make the decisions he made in the
target motion analysis phase to decide to come to periscope
depth just gave the FT of the watch, and in the FT of the
watch's description to me, an impression that the CO felt
comfortable working directly with sonar without a lot of other
implants. And this was the impression the FT of the watch had
of the way the CO and the sonar watchstanders were working at
that point.
And I think probably it was more the latter -- or more
the former issue of the physical presence of the visitors in
significance if you compare the two, but both were issues that
he brought up.
Q One more question if you don't mind. You mentioned time
as an issue here. Would it be an issue of him having
confidence? This is not an issue of him having confidence,
that he really had a solution at four thousand feet or not,
when saw before he should have reported it not whether or not
he thought it high or low confidence?
A Yes, he probably didn't have high confidence that four
was correct, but it was an alarming change and regardless of
his feelings about it, it was potentially a dangerous
situation and he should have brought it up.
VADM. NATHMAN: Thank you.
Counsel.
MR. GITTINS: Yes, sir.
Q As we discussed earlier, sir, I believe you hold the
view, and I think strongly so, that had the Fire Control
Technician of the watch announced that four thousand yard
contact, that solution, that this accident would not have
occurred?
A Yes. I do hold the view that that would have been one
of the things that could have changed history. Not the only
thing, but certainly a very important thing.
Q Clearly at the time 1335, had the Commanding Officer
been aware of that piece of information you don't have any
reason to believe that he would have surfaced the ship under
those circumstances; do you, sir?
A That would have changed history. He would not have,
without further effort to evaluate that data, conducted
himself the way he did.
Q Thank you.
Sir, with regard to the CEP -- I'm going to talk about
Exhibit 7 and Exhibit 4, both of which are on the wall behind
the court reporter.
There are two places in the last hour where the Fire
Control Technician officer of the watch logically could not
plot sonar contact data. Would you agree with that, sir?
A Yes.
Q And I'm talking about Sierra 13, sir, the contact that's
plotted on Exhibit 7.
A I was focusing on that one contact also.
Q Yes, sir. And just after 1240, perhaps 1242, 1243 the
ship USS Greeneville placed Sierra 13 in its baffles. Is that
accurate, sir? No, it's not? Right here, sir.
A Yes, it appears to be accurate.
Q So there would be no sonar contact data for Sierra 13 at
that point, correct sir?
A Correct.
Q And in this area, beginning about 1325 the ship began
high speed, high angle maneuvers that also would have resulted
in the sonar being not inoperative, but not providing useful
data to the sonar technicians; correct, sir?
A Correct.
Q There's a technical term for that, sir, would you help
me out with it?
A It would have -- ATF because of data scanner, because
although it was receiving information it was not a reliable
subset of information because the flow noiser noise around the
bow is so high.
Q Yes, sir. In the last hour there was a failure to plot,
at least for about 25 to 30 minutes in that last hour there
was a reasonable explanation for not plotting contact data,
wouldn't you agree with that, sir?
A I'd say for a total of about 20 minutes in the aggregate
of that hour you're right, for Sierra 13.
Q Yes, sir.
A Now, in this period there may have been other contacts,
but no contacts in this five minute period, approximately five
minute period.
Q Yes, sir.
And the reason in the high angle, high speed maneuvers
it would have been physically beyond the fact that the sonar
doesn't provide reliable data, it would also have been
physically difficult for the Fire Control Technician officer
of the watch to get to the CEP plot and manage to stay
standing up to plot, wouldn't you agree, sir?
A In the high angles portion, yes. I don't know what
angles the ship achieved in the high speed turns. My report,
my studies indicated they didn't achieve large angles then
because they were very proficient in avoiding the large
angles. So more so in the angles period than the turn period
it would have been physically hard to get to the plot. But
conceivably in both periods.
Q Yes, sir.
The information that is plotted on the CEP, the paper
plot that would have been in the forward section of control is
information that is also available from the Fire Control
Technician's consoles on the starboard side of the vessel,
correct sir?
A In the large part, yes. The annotations are not
necessarily there, but the ship displays are, yes.
Q Ship displays --
A The equivalent type of information is is there.
Q Yes, sir. And the Commanding Officer would, in your
opinion, would not have any difficulty understanding the
displays of the Fire Control Technician officer of the watch,
would he, sir? Those displays -- they would be routinely
reviewed by a Commanding Officer or even an Officer of the
Deck during the watch, correct sir?
A They could be, and you would expect they would be.
Q Yes, sir.
A And especially with the AVSDU out of commission I would
expect they would be referred to more frequently than normal.
Q Yes, sir.
You, in response to I believe it was Rear Admiral
Sullivan's questions, sir, you talked about situational
awareness on the part of the Commanding Officer. Based on
your investigation you believe and it's your opinion that
Commander Waddle believed he had situational awareness for the
contacts that were displayed, or had been identified by sonar,
wouldn't you agree?
A Yes, I think he did feel he had a good situational
awareness. I don't think he would have gone to periscope
depth if he didn't think that.
Q Yes, sir.
Sir, sonar search plan, that's a document that would be
signed -- prepared and signed before getting underway,
correct?
A It should be.
Q You haven't seen a sonar search plan for 9 February,
correct?
A Correct. I haven't necessarily spent time looking for
it either.
Q Understand, sir.
So your testimony is that you don't know if one was
done, or not done, that is something that the investigation
needs to look into?
A Yes.
Q Is there a retention -- a records retention requirement?
CAPT. MACDONALD: Can I interrupt just for a
minute? Over the lunch break, Mr. President, we have found
the sonar search plan. It's classified secret right now and
as soon as we get a classification review done we'll be
introducing that to the Court.
MR. GITTINS: Thank you. That resolves that
area of inquiry.
Q In response to Rear Admiral Sullivan's questions, sir,
you discussed the classification efforts by sonar of contact
Sierra 13. Did you actually -- did you or the people who
conducted questioning on your behalf actually ask those
questions of the potential witnesses as to whether or not they
attempted to classify Sierra 13?
A I did not personally ask the question. I'm under the
assumption that Commadore Byus did.
Q Yes, sir.
What would be required, sir, as a matter of course, to
classify a sonar target?
A It may be as easy as just using the oral indications to
the operator and having him do it with mental analysis from
what he's hearing, or it may require, and generally would
require use of the analog system or digital system, I mean, in
sonar to aid the installed legacy system Busy 1 has modes
called classification which have various sub modes that allow
you to do analysis of the contacts, for example. And that's
the most fastest way to do it, but there are other ways as
well by patching that signal to other equipments.
Q Yes, sir.
Sir, is classification is any way related to signal to
noise ratio for a contact?
A Well, yes. It is in that the more signal you have the
more signal you have to dissect and analyze. Weak contacts
are difficult to analyze because they don't have enough signal
to analyze.
Q Sir, to log the classification, what degree of
confidence would a sonarman have to have to log the
classification of contact?
A A fairly high degree, it's a judgmental thing, but I
think that the sonarman would need fairly high degree of
confidence.
Q Sir, are you aware that sonar supervisor reported to
Commander Waddle that Sierra 12 was a probable merchant, and
that Sierra 13 was a probable small craft?
A I don't remember if I recalled seeing those phrases or
not. It's possible I was aware of it.
Q Sir.
A It's not in my current consciousness, but I may have
been.
Q In your experience as a highly experienced mariner, sir,
what would a small craft mean to you if you were told that a
contact was a probable small craft?
A In a non military context such as we're talking about
here, it would mean it's probably a pleasure boat or a very
small commercial fishing boat, and -- or perhaps if there are
high speed passenger ferries, small passenger ferries high
speed, it could be something like that. Those are the range
of things I would be thinking about as opposed to a merchant
or a warship or a -- a two hundred foot fishing troller.
Q So, a two hundred foot fishing troller would not, in
your mind, be a small craft?
A No. It would be more of a -- it would be called a
troller.
Q Sir.
A Or a merchant. One of those two, more than it would be
called a small craft.
Q Sir.
A But, you know, there is -- there is a gray area here a
two hundred foot troller may still be in that gray area for
some sonarmen out there, but I would call it a troller and not
a small craft.
Q Yes, sir.
A report of a probable small craft with a low signal to
noise ratio on a bearing toward Oahu, sir, would that suggest
to you a far away contact as a submariner, if you didn't have
a computed fire control solution?
A No. No. I don't think I'd be comfortable in assuming
it was far away. In fact, in general a small craft are not
detected far away, 'cause they are small and their signal into
the water is generally lower, therefore than big machines and
big ships.
But it actually would be a cause for me in preparing to
do emergency below of some concern that I would want to make
sure I gave it a good look because they're harder to see, and
they can be heard too if you come up in an emergency blow.
Q Yes, sir.
A You know it's at least nine miles or closer, because
that's the distance to land in that bearing, but what you
don't know is how far.
Q Yes, sir.
What we do know about Sierra 13 was that it was a low
signal to noise ratio for a period prior to -- it was a
negative signal of noise ratio from the slogger data, is that
accurate, sir?
A I'll take your word for it.
Q Yes, sir. And it was on a bearing generally in the
direction of Oahu, Honolulu, correct sir?
A Yes.
Q And at least at times, according to exhibit -- exhibit
7. With respect to Exhibit 7 at approximately 1314 local time
there was a computer fire control solution that indicated it
was opening, is that correct, sir?
A Yes.
Q An opening would indicate going away, or toward Oahu;
correct, sir?
A Correct.
Q If a -- if a sonar supervisor informed a Commanding
Officer that he had a probable small craft, would the data
that you see on Exhibit 7, the fact that the vessel would have
been identified as going toward Oahu and a probable small
craft, would that suggest to you, sir, a target of concern?
A I can see where you're saying that that would indicate
it is not a target of concern. Let me counter that thought
by, you know, when you start to think about this, I've had
this target for over half an hour -- well, I guess at this
point three quarters of an hour, and I'm only nine miles or so
from land as it is in that bearing, so if he is that far away
and going away, he's on land. So, at some point he has to be
closer to me if he's really going away from me than nine
miles, and he's a small craft. I don't hear a small craft as
far as I hear merchants or trollers, so I guess I would not
call it of no concern.
I maybe wouldn't call it high concern either, but it's
definitely an issue for me to want to resolve if I were the OD
or CO before I did emergency blow.
Q Yes, sir. Would you agree that the 1314 --
A It looks like an opening target from that information.
Q Yes, sir.
A Again, just thinking further about it, I might question
that because if he's been opening that long at that bearing it
doesn't jive with where I am from land myself, so --
Q Yes, sir.
We're talking about Exhibit 7 again, sir.
A Right. Now, we know small boats do meander and don't
necessarily go like a merchant from point A to point B, so
there are explanations for why a small craft would still be in
that bearing and not be close. There's a potential range
that's believable of outcomes of why that would be, but
there's also the possibility that he is closer.
Q Yes, sir.
Will you agree that the information that presented by
Sierra 13 could cause confusion?
A Yes. And confusion argues for further evaluation, to
me.
Q Yes, sir.
A Both by the Court and for a ship at sea.
Q Yes, sir. Sir, we discussed -- you discussed in
response to Rear Admiral Sullivan's questions the term to the
left and its relationship to penguin bank?
A Yes.
Q You interviewed ET1 Thomas, did you not, sir?
A I believe I did.
Q Did -- are you aware that ET1 Thomas stayed -- I'm not
sure if he stated it in your interview, sir, stated that he is
the person that advised the Commanding Officer that he should
turn left because of penguin bank? Do you recall that, sir?
A I don't think I was aware of that. I don't recall being
aware of that.
Q ET1 Thomas was the navigation supervisor on board
Greeneville at the time of the accident, correct sir?
A I believe that's true, sir.
Q It would be reasonable for a Commanding Officer who was
provided that information by his navigation supervisor to,
although he's required to think about it obviously and make a
judgment decision, to follow that advice by an experienced
navigation supervisor; wouldn't you agree, sir?
A I would certainly agree with that. And furthermore, as
I've testified before, I don't think 340 as the ultimate
course, and I don't think turning left or right to get to 340
is an issue that I take up with the Captain. I think that
those were all, for what he knew at the time, reasonable
decisions.
Q Yes, sir.
Sir, the -- in response to some questions from Rear
Admiral Sullivan you discussed the emergency deep procedure.
In the normal course an emergency deep could be ordered by
anyone on the periscope at any time while the periscope is
raised; correct, sir?
A Yes.
Q And an emergency deep is an immediate action drill,
wouldn't you agree, sir?
A Yes.
Q It is a safety of ship drill?
A Absolutely. It's a safety of ship command.
Q Command. Yes, sir.
In the normal course, if the emergency deep was
required, the crew would not have time to think about that,
would you agree, sir?
A They would react immediately.
Q Yes, sir. They wouldn't get a warning that we're about
to do emergency deep, it would be emergency deep and they'd
react with emergency action drill, correct, sir?
A For the real case of a real emergency, that's what would
happen, with no prior warning. You may have no prior warning.
Q There is no reason why it would be inappropriate to
order an emergency deep in connection with a scheduled
emergency main bow's tank blow, is there?
A No. And I -- in my discussions with the Court earlier
today, I was trying to make the point that I think that was
within the reasonable realm of what the CO could do in order
to exercise the promptness of getting deep and blowing using
emergency deep as a vehicle to do that.
The Court was questioning was the full training value
available if you don't brief that in advance and have monitors
and so forth. And know the full training value may not have
been there, but it still may have been a very appropriate way
to catalyst the rest of those sequence of evolutions, in my
mind.
Q Would the Captain on the CON, he is the ultimate monitor
of the performance of his ship, is that not true, sir?
A That is, and I think I did testify that the Captain
could logically do this without any prior alertment, even if
he -- or Captain Brandhubber, and still be doing something
reasonable in my judgment.
Q In response to questions by Vice Admiral Nathman, sir,
you indicated that it was of concern to you that the digital
depth gauge and the mechanical shallow water depth gauge were
six feet off.
A Yes. Although I'm still not guaranteeing -- you know,
some people have told me that once the Court was convened. I
didn't determine that through my own investigation, and so I'm
not sure that is really the case. But if it is the case that
would be something you'll want to fix.
Q Yes, sir.
The person who would apply those corrections in the
normal course would be the diving officer of the watch, would
he not, sir?
A You mean moment by moment?
Q Yes, sir.
A Yes. In fact, the diving officer of the watch is
probably not using the digital moment by moment, he's using
the shallow depth gauge at periscope depth.
Q Yes, sir.
A Or, you know, when shallow. And the fact that there's
another indication that has this error is not something that
is normally reported. It's a material issue for an indicator
that you're using as a back up.
Q Could the digital depth gauge as a back up?
A Yes.
Q And in the normal course the Greeneville --
A May I just add, though, it's an important back up. I
mean, you don't know when the shallow is going to break and
the back up is all you have. So one of the characteristics of
the diving officer is to keep track of both so that should one
suddenly fail you don't inadvertently find yourself below test
depth or below the surface because you were focusing on a
broken indication and not realizing it was broken, meanwhile
the back up is telling you the real story even though it's six
feet off.
Q Yes, sir.
The tolerance for the shallow water mechanical depth
gauges, plus or minus nine inches, is that accurate or do you
know?
A I don't know. But I know it's a fairly accurate device
so that that rings true.
Q Yes, sir.
When the AVSDU became casualty item on board, you noted
as a result of your investigation that the Commanding Officer
and the Executive Officer made more frequent visits to sonar,
correct sir?
A Correct.
Q And that was an appropriate means by which to compensate
for the casualty; correct, sir?
A Absolutely.
Q The compensation may also have been informed, would you
not agree, sir, by the fact that Greeneville was operating in
an area of known low shipping?
A The compensation for the failed AVSDU?
Q Yes, sir.
A Their actions as a result?
Q Yes, sir. The manner in which they compensated may have
been informed by the fact that they were operating in an area
where they expected little in the way of other shipping?
A I'd be careful there, counselor. The safety of ship is
a universal requirement, and it applies uniformly across low
and high and medium shipping areas, and clearly should apply
nine miles south of Oahu.
Q Sir.
A In hindsight. So, I'd be careful to make that
assumption. I think the ship would probably want to be
conservative in the way it maintains safety of the ship
standards.
Q And would you agree, sir, that posting the Executive
Officer in the sonar room would be one way to assure that
proper compensation was being made at the time the ship was
coming to periscope depth?
A Absolutely. That was very appropriate. That's a
strenuous measure.
Q Yes, sir. And it's less important to have that
compensation when the ship is operating at deep depth; would
you agree, sir?
A Particularly when not in the proximity of a potentially
other submarines and the ship had every reason to believe it
wasn't. So I would certainly agree here.
Q Yes, sir. So when the ship is at deep depth, four
hundred feet, six hundred feet, whatever, there's less of a
requirement to compensate by having frequent visits to sonar;
correct, sir?
A That is correct, except, remember, we're at some point
in this underway voyage starting to pay attention to building
a history of information to make a judgment to do emergency
blow. And so at the point in time where that history starts
to really count, from then on whether you're deep or not you
want to really be gathering that information diligently.
Q And beginning at least after lunch you have evidence to
suggest that the Captain and the Executive Officer were making
those efforts?
A Yes. By their presence in sonar they were.
Q With respect to the sonar, the performance of sonar on 9
February, sir, did you uncover any evidence that sonar was not
making proper and timely reports to the control room, Officer
of the Deck and the rest of the control party, ship's control
party?
A Not directly, no. Some indirect indicators were, not
running the work tape and failure to aggressively classify
those Sierra numbers more fully. But no direct knowledge. No
direct evidence. I have a sense that the supervisor was a
diligent supervisor in providing the appropriate types of
reports.
Q Yes, sir.
Sir, this was a distinguished visitor evolution,
correct?
A Correct.
Q And you would agree that a distinguished visitor
evolution, the purpose is to make the Navy look good, would
you agree with that, sir?
A Not cosmetically. I mean to make the Navy look good
because that's the way the Navy is.
Q Absolutely.
A Amen.
Q Show the competence of this vessel?
A Yes.
(See next Reporter's transcript.)
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