Unofficial transcript: Session 6
Choose a session: Day 1, Session 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Day 2, Session 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Day 3, Session 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Day 4, Session 1 | 2 | 3
March 5, 2001
EXAMINATION BY LCMR MacDONALD:
Q The court reporter has marked this exhibit as
Exhibit 4.
Sir, do you recognize this exhibit?
A Yes, I do.
Q And sir, is this the track reconstruction you
included as Enclosure 1 to your preliminary inquiry
report?
A It's close, but it is not the same.
Q How is it different, sir?
A There were some corrections that were -- I
would call refinements made to the Greenville and
Ehime Maru's tracks since I generated my report.
This issue of the initial four or five knot
speed exiting Honolulu Harbor of Ehime Maru was not
known to me at the time I generated my report so the
track correction for Ehime Maru that you see here
does accommodate that.
Additionally, with regard to Greenville's
track, the logged data that is digitally recorded in
the sonar and fire control system was not fully
utilized by me at the time that I did my report but
it includes own ships parameters, and it's recorded
every second.
164
So that degree of refinement exists in this
Greenville track you see here, so it did slightly
alter the track by making it more accurate.
Q Sir, since the time that you did the original
reconstruction in your preliminary inquiry report to
now, have you had an opportunity to look at the
additional data?
A Yes, I have. And frankly, this is a better
chart as you would expect because it is more refined
data. It also resolves some of the slight
differences between the recorded sonar data that I
had prepared in my report and the bearing on DR
positions for the sonar for the two tracks, I had
this slight bias when I generated my report.
This has eliminated that bias so this is a
better track.
ATTY E: Just one second. One
question I have. You have used the word "refined."
Do I take it you mean more accurate? When you
say "refined?"
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir I believe
this is more accurate. It's very close to what I had
to work with, but it's even more accurate.
ATTY E: I'm sorry, sir.
Q Admiral, do you believe the chart is an
165
accurate representation of the tracks of the two
vessels on 9th of February?
A Yes, I do.
Q Commander Harrison, if you would put that one
down. Admiral, I will have you go through the two
reconstructed tracks.
We actually have a Power Point production which
will be showing shortly on the screen, but I would
like you to first describe activities on the
Greenville, the watchstanders who manned it on the
9th of February, and I would like this chart to be
marked as Court Exhibit Number 5.
If you would show it to Admiral Griffiths.
Sir, do you recognize this chart?
A Yes, I do.
Q And what is it, sir?
A This is a rendition of the watchstanding
arrangement on a typical attack submarine such as the
Greenville that would be pertinent to understanding
the events leading to this collision and sources are
such references as the ship's organization and
regulations, manual, and other documents, plus my own
experience and the experience of the drafter.
Q All right, sir. Commander Harrison, if you
would put the diagram up on the ledge there.
166
Commander Harrison, if you would get the next
chart, please, and I would like this marked as court
Exhibit 6.
ATTY E: Sir, at this time, I have
a question.
ATTORNEY C: Right here, that line.
MR. GITTINS: We'll describe it as
we go.
Q Commander Harrison, if you would show Admiral
Griffiths court Exhibit 6.
Sir, do you recognize that?
A Yes.
Q Would you explain to the members what it is?
A That's an orientation of the general
arrangement of the control room and just forward, a
little to my right, the lower right of this document,
the sonar control room of the USS Greenville and the
class of ship, that Third Flight 688 submarine, and I
think it would be a useful format to describe the
watchstanders, most of whom are shown on this diagram
already on the bulkhead there, as it would relate to
the operation of the Greenville that day.
Q Sir, do you know how it was constructed?
A I think it was constructed from available
references, plus a site visit to the submarine, and I
167
think it generally looks close to my recollection of
this class of ship's control room and sonar.
Q Okay, sir.
A I also might add, I rode a sister ship of the
Greenville a few weeks ago here in Pearl Harbor, the
USS Cheyenne, which although it's not identical, has
a similar layout, and this seems to purport.
Q Commander Harrison, if you would put up the
overview of the control room and sonar room.
Q Sir, with the laser pointer, what I'd like you
to do if you would is describe for the court the
layout the actual watchstations that were manned on
board Greenville on the afternoon of the 9th of
February.
And what I'd like to you do, sir, is to start
with the key watchstanders sections of the key
watchstanders, and we'll place them where they
actually stood their watch in the diagram to the
right.
So if you could take us and kind of
inter-relate us and show us the chain of command, and
then where they actually stood their watch and what
their duties and responsibilities were.
A All right. Starting with the ship's control
party, which is comprised of five individuals, the
168
senior one is the diving officer of the watch.
He is the second senior person in the control
room in charge of the watch team. He is, if you
will, the number two in command of the forward end of
the command's watch party.
Generally, an enlisted senior -- enlisted
watchstander can be an officer, and would normally
sit here and operate between the outboard and the
inboard stations of the ship's control panel or SCP,
in the forward port corner of the control room, as I
have indicated here with my laser.
Q Commander Harrison is putting a sticker up on
the chart that indicates the diving officer of the
watch.
Is that the correct position?
A Yes, that is essentially where he would stand
his watch.
Q Okay. Continue, please.
A His primary function is to be sure the ship
achieves or maintains depth, but he also has an
overall supervisory role.
Q Secondly, the Chief of the Watch or COW here
would stand his watch at the ballast control panel at
the forward port, at the ballast control panel.
Normally he would be seated here, and he
169
generally operates all the auxiliary systems of the
ship -- trim and drain, hydraulics, and indications
that a ship needs to have operated so that it
maintains the right buoyancy and the right
conditions.
So the chief of the watch would sit here at the
ballast control panel. He is the number three guy
and generally controls -- backs up the diving officer
of the watch and ensure the routines are executed
properly. And he has to reach out and watch all the
other watchstanders throughout the sub.
These two subordinate drivers of the ship, the
helmsman and the planesman, the helmsman is normally
at the inboard station, was in the inboard station on
the Greenville that day, and would sit here.
And his primary function is to control the
direction the ship takes in the course, and also the
depth that the ship is achieving through the use of
the bow planes, so the rudder and the bow planes are
simultaneously controlled by the different movements
of the yoke that he operates as the helmsman.
And the course, the planesman has the starboard
planes and he generally controls the angle on the
submarine.
So I didn't mention the messenger, he's a
170
Jack-of-all-trades, rotates in to these seats when
they become fatigued, either at the helmsman or the
planesman position, generally is qualified to be in
either of these two seats, but also runs messages,
brings coffee, and does other duties.
That completes the ship's control party, and
they live their life on watch in the forward port
corner of the control room.
The contact management team listed here, I have
discussed. Next -- I will start next with the ESM
operator.
Now the ESM is a station aft of the control
room, off to the left side of the picture shown here,
because this over here, to the right side of the
picture is forward, and this is aft in this
orientation.
So the radio room and the ESM space combined
exist here, aft of control.
That's where the ESM would be stationed, and he
uses antennas to obtain communications and electronic
signal data, interpret that tactically, and provide
input to the officer of the deck for the safety of
the mission.
And the radar man is in a similar space, even
though I am jumping over to navigations, back here in
171
the -- coming back to the contact management team,
the fire control technician or FCOW normally stands
his watch on the starboard side of control on the
lower side of this picture operating all these
consoles here.
Now the installed fire control system includes
these file consoles that I am showing here, plus some
other ancillary machines and graphs that he may
maintain on paper.
On the particular day in question, the fire
control technician or the watch for the hour prior to
the collision, I believe, was maintaining his watch
station seated at a bench on the third-from-forward
of the four installed fire control panels.
Although he would operate all of these four
panels, this one is only used for weapons employment
and is NA on the day in question, except for the
water slugs in the morning, but these panels would be
useful in understanding the contact picture of
surface contacts, and he would operate all of them
and have additional duties of maintaining a paper
chart plot maintained in the corner here where he
works.
So again, to summarize, he takes the sonar raw
data on contacts obtained from sonar, either passive
172
or active sonar, and analyzes that data to try to
determine the course, range, and speed of those
contacts that sonar is detecting, so that the officer
of the deck can understand those parameters in
relation to his own ship.
Now, let's move forward to the sonar space.
I am outlining here with my laser pointer the
sonar control room or sonar I will call it on the
Greenville.
You can see it's not a lot of room in there.
A lot of it is taken up with lockers and
equipment, but the four panels of primary use are
these four right here that are indicated in these
blue boxes. These two are associated with the arrays
the ship was using that day.
These two were dormant on the day in question
because they are only useful when the ship is
streaming to tarrays ** which are streaming before
the ship.
Q So you are indicating that the first two dark
blue boxes, the busy one, the BQR terminals were not
in use that day?
A That's correct.
The two main systems at use were the two busy
one legacy consoles here operating pass of sonar in
173
various modes.
Q And who would have been on those two consoles?
A This says "sonar operators" here under the
sonar supervisor for the sonar shack.
The sonar operators in question this day, they
had a third-class petty officer in one of the stacks
and a seaman on the other one, and the sonar
supervisor overseeing their actions would be in this
area here.
Q Now, there are other equipment in here that
they were using and that did have value in their
passive sonar employment, but the two main systems
were the ones that were seated here.
Now if you look at the guidance from higher
authority for this particular class of ship with this
variant of equipment in that particular mission of
local operations that they were in that day, they
should have had a minimum qualified watch of an
operator here, an operator here, and a supervisor.
All of them should have been qualified.
Q And what did your investigation discover with
respect to the qualifications of the sonar team?
A They met the guidelines with the exception that
one of these two operators here was a under
instruction watch, new to the submarine, new to
174
under-way operations, not yet qualified in sonar and
in a learning situation.
And unfortunately, he was not being
consistently supervised by qualified operators which
would be the requirement.
If the trainee is in the seat, you have a
qualified operator with that person at all time and
assigned on watch, in other words, to be that watch
in reality.
Q So, sir, you would have expected to see another
sonar operator next to the operator that was under
instruction?
A Yes, another sonar operator in addition to the
sonar supervisor who was overseeing all operations in
the sonar space.
I would expect the individual operator at the
stack to have a qualified operator with him
overseeing all his actions.
On the day in question, I discovered through
interviews that that was only periodically the case,
they had a more senior and qualified sonar operator
who periodically would supervisor him, but that was
not the assigned duties of that more senior operator,
and there were periods when he was not in sonar and
exercising them, nor was he assigned on the watch
175
bill to do that.
Q Sir, what were his assigned duties that day?
A Which "he?"
Q The operator that was coming in and out of
sonar that day.
A His assigned duties officially were to be a
tour guide for the guests.
Q And that was for the distinguished visitors?
A Yes. Now you should understand that is an
important duty, and one that has to be fulfilled by
fairly senior people.
There were a number of tour guides assigned, as
you would expect they should do. The commanding
officer doesn't have time to be personally with them
all the time.
So you would expect to see fairly senior people
assigned throughout the ship, for the various spaces,
whenever the group would come through their space,
and incidentally, perhaps not of the same impact and
value as eating lunch with the commanding officer.
These are very sharp sailors, they leave a
great impression. They are very knowledgeable of
their ship. So I am not commenting whether it was
appropriate for this first-class petty officer to be
a tour guide, it probably was.
176
What I am commenting, somebody qualified should
have been continuously overseeing that operator on
the panel.
Q The sonar supervisor could not have done that,
sir?
A No, he couldn't have done it well enough, and
certainly wouldn't have been authorized to do it per
the watch bill, because his duties are too
widespread.
ATTORNEY: By "expectations" you
meant expectations that he would sit physically in
the space as the qualified operator for duty -- if
the operator --
A It should have been as if the senior
watchstander had the watch. The other does not count
as a watchstander under the watch bill.
Q Sir, would you continue with the key
watchstander's chart and tell us where the Quarter
Master of the Watch would stand his watch?
A The Quarter Master of the Watch is now over
here, under Navigation and Operations, and is the one
subordinate watchstander I have not mentioned.
He would generally stand his watch between the
two navigational plotters, and use one of the two
plotting tables to keep track of the ship's position
177
at all times, geographically on a navigational
chart.
Q Sir, where would you expect the officer of the
deck to stand his watch?
A Technically, the officer of the deck would
maintain his watch in the control room at all times.
He is authorized briefly to go into sonar, if
necessary to confer with the sonar supervisor.
That is generally not done because he has some
redundancies in those displays and control.
Normally, and there is enough things that
happen to require his full attention.
More specifically, in general, you would tend
to see him in the central part of the control room on
the com, because he has the best vantage point there
for watching all the operations in control. But
theoretically, he could be anywhere in the control
room, and be within the guidance of the CO to operate
as officer of the deck.
It depends on what the ship is doing at the
moment, where he may want to be.
When you are doing a particularly strenuous
type of maneuver, he might want to be in a vicinity
where he can directly oversee the ship's control
party such as angles and dangles.
178
If you are preparing to come to periscope
depth, and you are conducting passive sonar
evolutions, he may want to bias his watch more to the
starboard side, where he can watch sonar display
here, analyzing contacts.
So to some degree, what he's doing at the time
overseeing navigation ship's control, contact
management, determines where he physically stands.
Sir, all of the watchstanders that you
mentioned below the officer of the deck, ship
control, contact management, navigation,
operations -- they all work for the officer of the
deck?
A Absolutely.
The officer of the deck is by definition when
he's on that watch, he's the senior watchstander on
the ship. And unless there is a special mission
scenario, not applicable here, where the captain
would direct a command duty officer who frequently
might be the captain. But that is NA here.
In local operations, the officer of the deck
would be the senior watchstander.
Q Sir, continuing up the charts from the officer
of the deck, I notice a dotted line here over to the
executive officer.
179
Would the executive officer on the afternoon of
the 9th -- was he on the bridge or in control,
rather?
A Yes, the executive officer and the commanding
officer were generally in control for that period of
time leading up to the collision for that last hour
or so of submerged operations.
Neither of them were actually on watch.
Both of them have a role to play in the safe
operation of the ship. By regulations, the
commanding officer directly has that role.
The executive officer role is indicated by a
dotted line here as a backup to the commanding
officer.
Again, neither of these officers is technically
on watch. As the two senior officers on the ship,
they are watchful to everything that occurs on the
ship, and the commanding officer will frequently give
orders to the officer of the deck on how to com the
ship.
Q On the 9th of February, where were the CO and
XO actually were?
A In general, the captain was in control in the
general environs of control, and would periodically
go into sonar. And so I think it only fair to say he
180
was mobile.
And the executive officer similarly, I am sure,
was mobile, but as I understand it from interviews,
biased his location to the forward starboard area of
control and going into the sonar as well as the
captain periodically.
Again, though, I don't want to imply they
weren't mobile. I am just trying to bias where they
may have been in general, particularly the exec.
Q Okay, sir. Sir, what I'd like to do now is
start up the Power Point presentation.
And I'd like you to take the members of the
court through the reconstruction that we saw earlier
on the chart.
We have a Power Point slide that we'd like to
put up.
ATTORNEY: Admiral Griffiths, I
have one question for you.
Can you elaborate for us what is available for
the officer of the deck at the accounting station on
board the Greenville?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. Perhaps the
most important display that is directly on the con is
a repeater called the "as do" which is an analog
video display unit that exists in the central
181
overhead of the con, here forward of the periscope.
And what it allows is the officer of the deck
to display any of the screens on the main legacy
consoles, in this case the two consoles here, in the
aft corner of sonar control that they are watching in
sonar.
So he is able to watch the passive sonar
display or the classification coming from sonar
displays there on the central part of the con.
And it's much more than just an oversight of
how sonar is doing. That display allows a good
ship-driver to make assessments of the parameters of
contacts without the use of the fire control system
and just mentally, in his head, based on thumb rules
and experience, so it's a powerful display and as
will come out later, it was broken this day, and was
not available to the captain or the officer of the
deck on the con.
There are other indications that are repeaters
if you will of electronic signals that come from --
or sonar signals received passively, such as WLR9 or
WLR12 which would record any fedometer or active
sonar such as a fast-finding sonar or a warship's
active sonar searching for them would display the
parameters of that to the officer of the deck and
182
also provides another source of just hearing passive
noise in the water from other ships as well as by
logics.
So those kind of displays are generally in this
region. If you are use radar, there is a console on
the deck. Radar is not normally useful, unless you
are surfaced or broached, and that console is here.
And then the fire control system here, the officer of
the deck is certainly able to come over and
personally observe all of these fire control system
consoles and even manipulate them, assisting the fire
control in understanding the contact picture.
So these are repeaters, or they are processes
that the officer of the deck is able to directly use
or oversee their use.
Q Admiral, you mentioned that with respect to the
CO and the executive officer, that they were moving
in and out of sonar on the afternoon of the 9th.
Is that because the "as do" that you described
earlier was out of commission? Is that what you
found during your investigation?
A Yes. I'd say for the most part, that was the
reason. A good skipper in an XO will go on sonar
even when the "as do" is working, periodically just
to show interest and to gain any extra insight that
183
the watchstanders can directly provide that the
display would not.
But in general, you would be in sonar much more
often if this "as do" was broken than you would be if
it was operating because it's a pretty vital piece of
gear for ship safety.
Q And sir, I would like to direct your attention
-- more questions --
VADM NATHMAN: Did the "as do" go
out of commission during embark, or was it out of
commission when they left the port?
THE WITNESS: Admiral, my
investigation has revealed that it was noted to be
failed during the first part of the underway, before
submerging early in the underway.
I don't think it was clear to the captain until
the underway was in motion, but it was before they
submerged.
VADM NATHMAN: Thank you.
THE WITNESS: And the determination
at that point was made that repairing it would be too
disruptive, so they would defer repairs until return
to court.
Q That's what you would do -- wouldn't you, if
your repeater in control was out, isn't that your
184
backup, if you will, if you were moving in and out of
sonar?
A Well, I have the advantage, as in all my
actions in this investigation, of hindsight.
When I was a submarine CO, and that piece of
equipment was broken, I felt somewhat naked.
It was a big deal.
And I would establish a temporary standing
order and direct the crew to add in an additional
conservative layer of actions to reduce the risk that
was created by having this key aide to the officer of
the deck out of commission.
Of course, with hindsight, I can say the ship
should have done that. Maybe the ship did consider
doing that, but clearly, you would not operate with
less margin than normal to safety if that was broken,
you would bias to operate with more, because it's a
vital piece of gear.
Q Okay sir, sir, I would like to direct your
attention to the screen that has the reconstructed
track of the Ehime Maru and the Greenville.
Sir, I know you described briefly the data that
was used to reconstruct both tracks.
Could you begin at 12:30, and begin up at the
top by Buoy Hotel, and describe again the track of
185
the Ehime Maru for the members of the court?
A Sure. Starting at the top of this track, there
is a green "x" in Buoy Hotel.
That would be the exit of Honolulu Harbor and
it was about 12:15 that Ehime Maru transited by that
buoy on this track of 166 degrees to the southeast.
And it was until about 12:50.
Roughly half an hour -- stowing her anchor for
sea that she increased her speed from 4 to 5 knots to
11 knots or so, and set that in her autopilot while
maintaining her course of 166, and thereafter, her
track is consistent until the point of collision with
those parameters.
Q Sir, do you know where the Ehime Maru was going
that day?
A According to the reports from her master as
provided to the National Transportation Safety Board,
she was heading on that course because that was the
most efficient way to open the exclusive economic
zone of the United States to the point where she
could legally fish in international waters.
So he did that purely for efficiency and
getting back to the business of fishing.
Q And you stated, sir, earlier in your testimony,
that most of the reconstruction of the Ehime Maru's
186
track came from her master, Captain Onishi?
A That's correct.
Q And also, that the last three miles I think you
said came from Honolulu Airport, from the Federal
Aviation Administration?
A Yes, and really, that confirmed what the master
had provided.
Q Sir, what I'd like you to do now is if you
could walk the members of the court through the USS
Greenville's track very, very briefly and begin, sir,
at 12:30 on the afternoon of the 9th.
A Okay. Well, just as an overview coming north
at 12:30 the USS Greenville appears on this blue
track.
And as I work my way up this track, when the
color changes to red. It's an indication that the
ship is at higher speeds, in this case greater than
20 knots during the period you see the red track, and
she slows and gets back to less than 20 knot speed
before the collision.
So in general, she's less than 20 knots, except
in this region here, she proceeded. At this period
of time, the ward room was in its first and second
seatings, the crew had completed being fed, and was
leaving the ward.
187
And the officer of the deck was directing the
ship in normal activities preparing for the
afternoons events.
Q And on the chart, you are indicating the time
between 12:30 and 13:00, correct?
A Yes, I am.
And at about this point here, the ship
commences her first afternoon evolution which is the
angles -- large up and down angles -- which I can
describe later.
And at about 13:25, she phases into the next
demonstration, which are high speed turns. These are
speeds in excess of 20 knots and turns using 35
degrees of rudder, which is fairly dramatic.
And she terminates that at 13:31, at which time
she makes preparation to go to periscope depth.
And she goes to periscope depth, and completes
her time at periscope depth, and goes deep to conduct
the emergency blow for training, and then does the
emergency blow for training, and that leads to the
collision at 13:43 and 15 seconds.
Q Admiral, what I would like to do now goes take
you to each one of the afternoon events in more
detail.
You mentioned that the first evolution that she
188
performed was angles and dangles. And I believe your
testimony was that began at 13:16?
A Yes, and the times in here are to the nearest
minute.
We actually conducted about a 45 second
correction in the times that was subsequent to my
report but in preparation of this chart, after a more
detailed comparison of the digital recorded data was
done after I signed my report, but these are to the
nearest minute.
And at 13:16, which is where my laser pointer
is here, when the ship was on a course north, she
increases speed to 14 knots, about a standard bell,
and commences angles.
And in doing these angles, she cycled between
increasing up and down angles of up to 30 degrees, up
and down, and increasing and decreasing depth in a
band between 160 and 650 feet.
And these are logical and safe boundaries to
this condition, to demonstrate the maneuverability of
ships in changing depth rapidly.
Q So you are talking about movement in the
vertical axis and the vertical part of the water
column?
A That is correct.
189
I am talking about movement such as an airplane
would climb to a higher altitude, and you would
rotate back, and you would feel it going from
horizontal up to a 30 degree up angle. Well, the
submarine would actually take this 30 degree up
angle, so you would have people holding on to
equipment because their floor would be angled at 30
degrees, and they would otherwise slide along it.
And similarly when they would want to go
deeper, they would go through horizontal, to go
deeper in a hurry, and again, they would hold on
because their floor has gone this 30 degree
down-slope.
Q In your investigation, did you assess how the
ship performed angles and dangles?
A Yes, I did. From what I could tell, they did a
excellent professional job.
This is a fairly challenging evolution,
especially in a case of a ship that had not operated
for a long time at sea.
The Greenville had been in maintenance for two
months prior, and so they had not a lot of seatime
prior to this event, and their ship's control party
demonstrated significant proficiency.
It was a very professional job.
190
Q Admiral, can you explain to the members the
difference between ship's depth and keel depth that
you referred to earlier?
A Well, of course, when the ship is on a zero
angle, very horizontal, they're synonymous.
You may have indicators on the ship like the
digital depth detector system or the mechanical depth
dector systems that would indicate without an error
what the depth is, but the true depth is the keel
depth, and all the indicators should be closely in
agreement with that when the ship is on an angle.
And that would be a keel on a black calm sea.
When you are doing an up-and-down angle, your
digital depth dectector, in the center forward line
of the ship has depth sensing ports there aren't
necessarily the lowest part of the ship or the
highest part of the ship. Your rudder on a up-angle
would be the lowest part, and your bow on a
down-angle would be the lowest part.
So that depth is just an average depth, not a
true depth when you are at a angle.
Does that answer the question?
A Yes, sir.
Q At what time did Greenville stop angles and
dangles?
191
A She completed her angles and dangles at 13:25
local.
Q You indicated on the chart that she increased
speed to some speed in excess of 20 knots.
What was she doing at that time?
A She was transitioning to a different type of
maneuver, a maneuver of a horizontal plane where she
would turn left and right to demonstrate how
maneuverable these ships are, when you want to turn
them in a hurry tactically.
So she would bring up her bell up to speeds up
to flank and use up to full rudder, which is 30
degrees left to right, to turn very quickly left to
right.
And that commenced at 13:25, and persisted
until about six minutes until 13:31, as indicated on
this chart at that time mark.
I might add, it's not a simple evolution on a
submarine with this much power, and the hydrodynamics
of an attack submarine. It's difficult to maintain a
zero angle in a zero depth change while going through
these horizontal turns if you are not reading the
problem and anticipating the effects of angle and
depth change, the ships control party can quickly
find that the ship is at a large angle and changing
192
depth rapidly, when all you wanted to had to do was
change course rapidly.
So once again, if I may just comment, the ship
demonstrated significant proficiency, a very
professional job of doing the ship's maneuvers
without changing angle or depth appreciably, and did
it in a very seaman-like manner.
Q Sir, what was the next evolution that
Greenville performed?
A The next evolution were preparations to do the
emergency blow.
Q And sir, what are the subsets of preparing to
do a emergency blow or an emergency surface?
A The basically steps to doing an emergency blow
from a submerged condition when you are doing it in a
controlled manner, and of course, it's important to
remark that this emergency blow system is primarily
an emergency system designed to very quickly get the
ship to surface in the event of a severe casualty,
such as flooding.
But when you demonstrate its use or when you
test its use, you go through a more controlled
process of first going to periscope depth, and
verifying that the area is clear of surface contacts
who would be endangered, and would also endanger our
193
ship if you should surface under them.
And then you go back fairly quickly to a depth
you want to conduct the blow from, probably 400 feet
is our normal practice, because that is deep enough
to allow the system to work, but shallow enough to
not have to use excessive amounts of air.
And then you conduct the emergency blow fairly
expeditiously, so that that previously verified
surface clear picture has not had time to degrade.
Q So you are describing four steps to the
process -- preparing to go to periscope depth, then
going to periscope depth, and then a emergency deep,
and then the emergency surface; is that correct?
A Let me make one slight correction.
The preparing to go to periscope depth part, I
agree with. Going and operating in periscope depth,
I agree with. The emergency deep -- that is another
training evolution to quickly go below periscope
depth if you happen to see a contact while you are at
periscope depth.
So she demonstrated that to go deep, but you
could also go down in a routine fashion, and then
once you are deep, conduct the emergency blow as a
fourth step.
Q Let's focus on Greenville as she prepared to go
194
to periscope depth. What steps does the ship take as
it prepares to go to periscope depth?
A Well, I think you need to look at the context
that the Greenville was transitioning from to do that
evolution.
She was operating fast, making a number of
turns. She was relatively deep at 400 feet, when she
was completing this red portion of her track at high
speed turns.
So the first thing she would want to do would
be to go shallow, below a depth where she would
collide with a surface vessel, but shallow enough to
have success in the ocean.
And in this case, it is 150 feet.
Q And that's because the sonar at the 150 feet
is going to be able to pick up the sound signatures
of vessels better?
A Yes. In general, because of the nature of the
sound column and the environment, that tends to
create the least obstacles on the sound ray path for
you to hear that surface noise.
So going to that shallower depth of 150 feet
and also slowing to 10 knots or less, which is a good
compromise speed to put enough speed through the
water so you could change bearings to contacts and
195
develop good fire control solutions, but not be so
fast as to create excessive machinery and especially
flow noise around your own sonar.
For example, when you go over 20 knots, your
sonar is basically deaf, and you have to slow down to
hear very well.
So she was coming shallower and slowing down in
order to conduct the preparations to go to periscope
depth through Target Motion Analysis with sonar.
Q Sir, generally, is there any time limit
associated wiwth going to periscope depth?
Does it take a certain amount of time to
prepare to do that?
A Well, this is one of those questions that has
to be answered by quotes "it depends" as a
preliminary to any answer.
Because the environment, the number of
contacts, what the ship had been previously doing,
its previous understanding of the local contact
picture before it starts to do this -- all of that is
pertinent.
I think in a general sense, it takes at least
two good sonar rays, with one or two contacts in the
same sector, and you have to increase those legs as
you gain more sectors around the 360 azimuth of the
196
submarine, as I will describe in a minute, in order
to fully understand not only which contacts are there
but more pertinently are any of them close in range.
Q You mentioned earlier --
A So let me just see if I can't finish my
answer.
I would say, nominally, ten minutes or more,
because you want to have three to five minutes per
leg, and if you don't have many contacts and they are
in the same general area, two legs may suffice to
determine none of them are close.
So I would say as a minimum ten minutes.
Q Okay, in your preliminary investigation, were
any time limits placed on Greenville coming to
periscope depth?
A Well, here is the thing. I have a statement
coming from I believe the officer of the deck who was
interviewed by Commodore Bias that indicated the
captain indicated he wanted to be at periscope depth
in five minutes. And that was as articulated at a
time when they had just commenced their transition
from the high speed operations to come shallow, clear
baffles, and go to periscope depth.
So the statement by the commanding officer
would imply that he would want to get to periscope
197
depth in a hurry.
And I can surmise it was because they were like
per their previous schedule.
Q Did you confirm that statement from the OD from
any other sources?
Choose a session: Day 1, Session 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Day 2, Session 1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Day 3, Session 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
Day 4, Session 1 | 2 | 3
|
