Unofficial transcript: Session 8
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
Q And sir, during your preliminary inquiry were
you able to determine how much time Greenville spent
doing her periscope search?
A I think at this point, we need to have the
digital history of the ships depth brought into
evidence.
Q Commander Harrison, would you have the next
chart marked as Exhibit Number 9, I believe it is?
LTCMR HARRISON: This will be marked as
Exhibit 9.
Q Admiral, you are being shown the expand depth
the periscope depth chart.
Could you please describe how much time the
Greenville spent at periscope depth? Could you
please put it up onto the tray?
And if you would begin in the lower left-hand
corner of the chart, and take us through the series
of black dots that you see beginning over here.
A Let me say a few preliminary remarks first.
What you are going to see here is a display of
ships depth by the digital depth dectector versus
time, with depth along the left vertical access --
shallow to deep, deep at the bottom, going shallower
at the top, and increasing time along the right hand
231
as you work right along the base.
Now, the data recorded here is automatically
recorded by the same system that is recording the
fire control solutions and the sonar data and so
forth, in other words, the ARCI fire control sonar
data recorder.
And this information was not available to me
when I conducted my investigation and signed off my
report. This has come out subsequent.
Really, this came to light at about the time I
was completing my report, so my recollection is I may
not have seen this before I signed my report it may
have been within hours afterwards.
But what you have to understand when you look
along the vertical axis of this report, this chart,
is that these are not to be applied absolutely to the
real depth of the submarine for two reasons.
One angle of the ship might cause error and
submarines generally have a slight angle at periscope
depth, because of the hydrodynamics of submarines.
Q I have a question for you up-angle would tend
to reduce the absolute angle of the periscope above
the waves?
A Yes.
Q And the other reason that is more significant
232
here is that there is usually an error, an absolute
fixed error in the depth detection system from truth
from the real keel depth to surface, and I would
guess in looking at this data that error was 3 to 4
feet on Greenville on this day.
So you have to take the left-hand axis as a
relative reference more than an absolute reference
and apply approximately a 4 degree -- I'm sorry -- a
four-foot change to what you're reading in the more
shallow direction to know what the Greenville's real
depth was.
And I say that with some confidence, because I
know the officer of the deck and the commanding
officer were looking out the periscope which has a
fixed distance above the keel, and they were seeing
things, and additionally, all submarines generally
pick their most reliable depth indication which is
not generally the digital, but is a mechanical depth
indicator, and every time they dip the scope, they
note the depth that that happens, and they correlate
that to their in-use most reliable indicator and that
is generally in within a foot.
And I think from reports from the diving
officer that we interviewed that was the case here,
so to make a long story short, as we start to now
233
work through this chart recognize that you are being
shown depths that are about four feet deeper than
reality when you read this chart.
Okay. The most important thing that I got out
of this chart was the following.
It gave me boundary conditions, because of the
large slope of the change in depth over time I knew
the ship was not periscope depth, or was proceeding
below periscope depth.
So it allowed me to calculate with pretty high
assurance how long the ship was at periscope depth.
And my estimate is about 80 seconds based on this
data.
And in my report I have put about two minutes,
and I think that was in hindsight generous, because I
didn't have this data available to me, and was using
log to the nearest minute data when I did my
investigation. So duration of periscope depth in my
estimation from this data is about 80 seconds.
And the second thing that this does is it does
correlate to the many witnesses who stated that the
officer of the deck ordered 60 feet, which is the
ships standard practice to proceed to periscope
depth, and then the captain took the scope and he
ordered a high school at 58 feet.
234
The driving officer was trying to meet the
needs of both depths wasn't perfect, and so there was
some cycling as he attempted to achieve these depths,
but he did a pretty good job of very quickly
achieving them, so this correlates well to the
captain coming up for a higher look than the officer
of the deck had. And the sequence of events is after
the safety sweeps, two or three quick revolutions in
low power, the offices yielded the scope up to the
captain who did similar sweeps, and also according to
some statements, did a high power search in a sector
to the north, where he knew two contacts on sonar
were.
So he generally did a sector search in high
power to the north, as well as safety sweeps around
in low power when the captain was on the scope.
But this was all done with some alacrity in a
depth of ordered 60, and then 58 feet, and then the
ship went deep, and used the emergency deep method to
go deep.
Q Admiral, why would Commander Waddle have
ordered a high look?
A Remember, the purpose of this periscope depth
is to truly ascertain that the area is free of
surface contacts so that you can quickly get down and
235
do an emergency blow to the surface. So you need to
be assured that there are no surface contacts in this
area, so he did that high look, I am sure, to further
assure himself that even though he didn't think sonar
was telling him there were close contacts, he was
verifying that visually.
That was his intent, I am sure.
Q Sir, what was the weather and sea state on the
afternoon of the 9th?
A Well, that's a good question. It kind of
depends on who you talk to or what data you look at
and that's typical when you reconstruct weather in a
marine environment.
We had reports that varied from 4 feet to 10
feet in wave and swell height, depending on the
source of the data. Let me start with the most
objective data.
The nearest moored Metok Buoy, a buoy that the
government pays for to provide constant weather
information via satellite for all users, all
customers for the nation and internationally is about
200 miles to the southwest of the site of the
collision. That is the nearest Metok Buoy, these are
open ocean buoys.
And it said that the wave and swell height was
236
8 to 10 feet. Now it's possible that that was higher
than the more local region to Oahu.
There was perhaps some re-shore effect in the
environs of wind that would provide a more sheltered
environment and hence dampen the waves to some
degree.
Q In looking at the video on CNN that was
provided from film footage from a local TV station I
would estimate six to eight feet, just from my
looking at the swells.
I would say that the most consistent average of
the people we talked to from the Greenville made it
six to eight feet, and finally, the master of the
Ehime Maru related it was a see state of
approximately 3.
And if I correlate all of that together, I
would say six to eight feet is the best average I can
come up with of the wave and swell height. That is
only one of the parameters you asked about. The
weather is a more general question.
The background haze in the environment made
visibility more difficult.
In periscopes, looking out in the hazed
condition, it tends to make light objects more
difficult to see.
237
So the darker the object, the more likely you
will see it, despite the haze, and the lighter the
object you are looking for, the more difficult to see
in a generally hazy day. Of course it was an
overcast day, so there was less sun and light than
normal. Periscopes are light-hungry, they always
need more light. So on darker days, they are less
able to see.
Q Admiral what was the -- what color was the
Ehime Maru?
A That's another issue here.
Of course, she had every right to be whatever
color she wanted. And her color scheme was basically
white. And that's not completely true, she had a
black stripe around the top of her stack. And that
would have been helpful to notice through the
periscope.
But in general, the mass which -- and do we
have a display we can show to the court.
Can we refer to that now?
ATTY A: I will have this marked as
court Exhibit 10.
Exhibit 10 marked.
Q Commander Harrison, if you could take down the
extended TD chart for a moment.
238
A As you can see, the Ehime Maru is basically a
white scheme of colored paint. There is the
exception of the stripe at the top of her stack which
most vessels have black at the top of their stacks
because of the soot comes out of the diesel engines.
I think you can honestly say -- and
incidentally, the central mass is the highest mast,
and my recollection -- I think we should refer
perhaps to the recorded data but my recollection is
the very top of that mast to the water line is
approximately 70 feet. Is that correct?
Do you have that data?
While you are getting that data let me just say
that the way a periscope works is as an object comes
over the horizon from distance to close the first
thing you would see is the tallest point of the ship,
the tip of the tallest mast.
And as it comes closer over the curvataure of
the earth, more of the ship would start to emerge,
you would see more of the mass, and now you would
start to see the shorter mast fore and aft, and the
next thing you would see is the top of the dark stack
because it's getting closer and closer over the
curvataure of the earth through the periscope and
then you would see the top of the bridge, and then
239
the main super structure of the ship.
And as more of these solid objects that look
different from just these thin masts start to appear
as it gets closer, the observer through the periscope
would be more and more likely to see it on a hazy
day, particularly the top of the bridge with the dark
windows and the top of the stack which start to make
it much more likely to see in a hazy day in a
periscope.
Q Sir, would she have been more difficult to see
given her -- the course she was on, and the target
angle from the Greenville?
A What we call the angle on the bow is as you
look from Greenville up towards the Ehime Maru, would
be if -- if you could see it coming straight at you,
that would be 000 angle on the bow, and then as you
work your way -- as this shows on the starboard side,
you would start to see a starboard angle on the bow,
it would be 90 degrees off the beam 180 astern 0, in
front.
This orientation you would see is very close to
what you would have actually seen through the
periscope of about a -- roughly a 25 degree angle,
starboard 25 degree angle on the bow for most of the
convergence of the two tracks. So this is sort of
240
the picture you would see.
Of course, depending on the range you would
only start to see small upper portions, and as you
would get closer, you would see more and more until
this would be fully visible.
So again, this is one of the issues related to
whether optics and scopes on how easy it would be to
see the Ehime Maru on this day.
Q How would you characterize taking into account
wave height, taking into account the weather, the
haze the whiteout conditions, and taking into account
the angle on the bow, and the white color of the
Ehime Maru, how difficult would it be to have seen
her?
A If you use the most shallow depth ordered by
the ship of 58 feet, giving you about roughly a --
roughly a 6 and-a-half foot amount of scope out of
the water, if you assume that the wave height and
swell height was about 8 feet, and if the ship is
occasionally in the trough of the wave, the periscope
is in the trough of the wave, that is, the wave will
partially obscure your vision.
If you recognize that some of the paint scheme
shown her on the upper reaches of the highest
elevations of Ehime Maru were painted white, and
241
would tend to bend into the back drop, and you put
all of those parameters into consideration and you
have kind of a very short duration of a periscope
depth where you have the worse case of being in the
trough of the wave, and so forth, it's possible you
would not in my estimation not seen the Ehime Maru
until she was within about 2000 yards.
Now the longer you stay holding your periscope
depth constant in that condition and continue to look
in that direction, the longer out you will see,
because those averages of visibility and wave troughs
and so forth will tend to become less worse case.
Over time, they will average out, and you will get a
longer and longer range you are able to see.
But for a brief periscope depth period, it's
possible that the Greenville was not able to see much
beyond 2000 yards for this particular target in that
weather condition that she faced.
Q Sir, in your opinion, after you completed your
preliminary investigation, was the Human Resource
that the CO ordered high enough?
A Clearly, in hindsight, it was not.
We know in fact from reconstruction the ships
were certainly less than 25 hundred yards apart when
the ship was -- when the Greenville was at periscope
242
depth, it was just over a mile to the Ehime Maru in
reconstruction, perhaps a mile -- 2000 yards one
nautical mile.
And that ship should have been seen given
enough time by the periscope operator.
Now, one of the things I was not able to
ascertain was the visual acuity of the officer of the
deck and the visual acuity of the two individuals to
looked out of the scope.
I wish I had an opportunity to make sure their
eyesight was okay, because that's one of the issues
that I just was not able to pursue in the time that I
had.
Q Admiral, kind of a follow-up question here -- I
just may go back and review this, but when the ship,
the Greenville, they obviously had a Metok brief
before they went underway, they had some indications,
I assume to the officer of the deck in terms of
current Metok conditions, when the order of periscope
depth of the 60 feet, as I recall it that you said --
did they take into account what was already assumed
to be the swell and wave heights to build
automatically a higher condition that they should
have gone to -- a higher periscope height for the
boat?
243
VADM NATHMAN: Admiral, I would say
that they ordered generic depths.
THE WITNESS: And probably
submarines in general do this because for the most
part they are not in daily audits, they don't have
immediate data. They transit a while, they come up
shallow, and look.
So you program to -- you take what you get you
assess it when it's there, it's a little difference
in aviation, you have to know in advance just to
safely fly in your envelope.
So we are pretty much conditioned to take what
we get when we're there.
Q So you would modify what you saw as a
periscope, based on what you say, and not do it in a
pre-determined manner?
A Yes, sir. That's what we would expect a
submarine to do.
Now you asked me if this was a high enough
look. What was the range of options open. The top
of the sail if it was fifty feet above the keel, if
the commanding officer ordered the keel broached,
you could get at least a range of three more miles to
the horizon, added to what he already was getting at
58 feet. So it would have been significantly more
244
and would certainly help overcome the sea state that
the admiral is alluding to, it would have been a
correction that is conservative, but perhaps
appropriate.
Second guessing the CO, he could have ordered
-- he has significant more amount of scope, he could
have put out of the water. I might also add he could
have done it for longer, because some of these
impacts of weather, wave and swell height that I'm
talking about averaged over time tend to be reduced
and mitigated because I am assuming kind of worse
case in the trough, and so forth, and eventually, the
eye, given several repeated attempts to see this
contact will see it. It may not see it the first
revolution or the second revolution, but eventually
you would see it.
So time is a great ally in these events, and
from a visual standpoint more time would have been
helpful -- a shallower depth, more time.
Q Sir, how do you assess the -- I think you
testified that it was 70 seconds that the -- that you
estimate the --
A I think I estimate now 80 seconds.
Q Do you think that was a long enough time to
spend at periscope depth?
245
A Well again, with the great benefit of
hindsight, no.
I have one other issue which is why I say
that. The master reported he was operating their
surface search radar on a twelve nautical mile scale
essentially it's max power scale since he left
Honolulu Harbor. So that was a sense of energy, a
radar that the BSM system on the Greenville probably
did detect.
Now the wave at the ESM works on a submarine
when your scope first breaks the surface, your
antenna is automatically starting to catch these
signals, but you have a dilution of signals,
particularly when you are operating near land nine
miles south of Oahu. Land-based signals are going to
be inundatin gthe operator.
So it takes a finite amount of time not only to
determine if any of them are close that are of a ship
worth that he variety, but also analyze them further
and refine that input.
The time they were at periscope depth of 80
seconds only provided that ESM operator an
opportunity to do oral analysis on those signals.
He has some sophisticated video digital
analysis equipment which allows you to rather quickly
246
break down the parameters categorize them and assess
them for range, at least rough correlation of range
through signal strength. But the operator in ESM did
not have time to do that because they were only at
periscope depth for about 80 seconds.
So this is one more way that the bell ringer
that could have helped the CO know that there was a
close ship was not able to be utilized.
Now I took the parameters as best I could
obtain them through Captain Kyle and his interface
through the NTSB with the master, and I had some
technical authorities at SUBPAC analyze for these
ranges, we knew the ships were apart from, whether or
not that signal strength would have logically been
high enough for the ESM operator to record that they
were a collision threat.
Because again, when you first come to periscope
depth, just like the officer of the deck is in a
bistable mode of either MCD for no close contacts the
ESM operator, is for a brief period of time is -- I
do or I don't -- an equivalent to the officer of the
deck.
He didn't get much beyond that period, where
analysis could have helped him come to that
conclusion before they went deeper then.
247
So because of the challenges to a good visual
search, and the lack of ESM time to analyze the ship
went deep too quickly.
And incidentally, one more point of criticism
is that the sonar information was not verbally cued
to the officer of the deck or the captain in a
rigorous way to do high visual searches down those
bearings.
Again, I don't think the ship expected a close
contact based on its analysis of the sonar picture,
so it didn't have a close contact to disprove in the
ship's calculus, but it did have sonar contacts out
there, and a direct correlation of the current
bearing to that contact with a high poured search
from the scope perhaps longer and shallower, would
have further warranted to disprove that they weren't
close.
Q Did anyone report either the OOD or the
commanding officer that there was a close contact at
periscope depth?
A No. There was no -- no one on board who made
any reports to the commanding officer or the officer
of the deck that there was that potential.
Q Sir, should the -- would they have known in
sonar -- would the sonar supervisor or should he have
248
known that they had a close contact, based on the --
the information he was getting?
A There are ways for sonar and the sonar
supervisor to indirectly make that determination.
They are fairly crude, and they are not nearly as
reliable as determining that kind of information
through analysis of data on a fire control system.
For example, though, the sonar operator and
supervisor can tell in some environments.
Where some depression elevations are where you
are seeing the strongest signal -- and that's -- to
digress just a second. A DE angle is where the
passive sonar is getting the most energy are in a
vertical plane. Is it getting it from somewhere up
here, somewhere straight out ahead, or somewhere down
here, and the actual from zero or horizontal that
it's getting that and there are ways to correlate the
various DE beams that it gets that energy to range
because there is some DE angles that can't be far
away if that's your strongest source.
So there are indirect or full course methods
that the sonar and the sonar supervisor can use to
make determinations of a close range, but they are
not reliable, and they are certainly much more
difficult to arrive at and take longer than what the
249
fire control operator should have in the fire control
system.
Q So you mention the fire control technician in
the watch. Did he know that he had a close contact
at periscope depth?
A What I can't understand is he did have -- first
of all, he did have indications that there was a
contact that was generating in by his fire control
system solution on the ship.
Now, the time frame where this happened is very
close to when the ship was arriving at periscope
depth. And I'll have to digress for a minute here.
This right-hand chart that you see posted vertically
here is a chart for Sierra 13 in the same time frame
as this whole track history of time versus range to
the target.
And this solid red line that you see starting
out distant here at the 12:30 time, and coming down
to where the collision occurred at 13:43, which is
zero range at the collision -- so starting out at 20
miles, and coming into zero miles -- is a continuum
of just connecting the range that each point in time
on the two correlating tracks generates down to
collision zero, so that's reality there, that red
line.
250
These -- these dashes and dots here are an
indication of in the fire control system what the
operator has entered for Sierra 13 as the fire
control solution range for that contact over time.
Now, you should recognize that the fire control
solution is a guess. It's never probably absolute.
It's never perfect.
And it's frequently not correct at all.
It's a process of using more and more data over
time to eliminate bad solution options, until you
finally hone in on the correct solution option, and
given time, these sonar and fire control systems that
we have on our digital equipped ships now are pretty
good at getting to the right answer.
And in some cases, it depends on the aspects of
the ships, the quality of the signal, how often it's
interrupted, and the operator proficiency, and so
forth. But over time, they eventually get there.
And in this case, it seems to me that the
operator had figured out that this guy was getting in
pretty close, just at or before PD.
And the -- and the operator did not make that
report to the officer of the deck or the captain.
Q Admiral, you say "close" I can't see the scale
on that. I can't see -- is it a thousand?
251
A This is zero yards, this is five miles here or
10,000 yards so each major increment is 5,000 yards.
That is 0, 5,000 yards, 10,000 yards, 20,000, 30,000,
4,000.
Q So when you say close you are indicating 2000
to 25000 on that scale?
A Yes, sir. And where I have the dot is about
4000 yards. That's about 2000, and this is zero.
So in this period here, the FT of the Watch is
entering into the system what I would call close
ranges, ranges inside 5000 yards and he was not
reporting that to the supervisory, watchstanders.
Q Would you expect him to make those reports
based on the data he had?
A Yes, I would expect that to be very relevant
information for the officer of the deck and very
helpful.
Q And sir, you mentioned that these data points,
they take a physical act by the FTOW to enter this
information, he has to know what he's doing -- that's
not automatic, correct he has to physically do
something?
A Yes. In general, there are automatic entries
into the fire control system. They are not the ones
being displayed here, though. These are the ones
252
that have to take manual operator entry to make.
And so he was making them.
Q Sir, in your investigation were you able to
determine why the FTOW did not report this close
contact to the officer of the deck or the commanding
officer?
A I tried. And I think I know why.
But further testimony may be helpful for the
court to understand that. There were two basic
issues going on here.
One is that there were a number of people that
were physically an obstruction to his line of sight
and communications with the OD and the captain.
Many of them were civilian guests of the
embarked visitors. They were in the control room in
a line of -- they were standing on the side in the
periscope stand area in a position where they were in
the way for the FT of the Watch to physically look at
and talk to the officer of the deck or the captain.
And are you going to bring out that diagram
again?
A Yes, sir, we'll put up the diagram so you can
show that visually to the court.
Now I only have kind of an aggregate sense of
where the visitors were from a number of interviews,
253
I am sure I don't know exactly where they were in my
own mind.
That is difficult to know after-the-fact.
So what I am describing for you is my sense of
where they were and it may not be totally accurate.
This is not a lot of room to put extra people in. We
have already put in watchstanders in an earlier
discussion. The watchstand is the only place they
could go to observe **
Would be in this L-shaped area right here,
starboard and forward center line and then to some
degree, you can put some more aft over here to the
left port side of the periscope stand.
So my sense is that the 16 visitors and captain
Brandheuber were filling in the space on the port
side of the periscope stand, and also center line and
starboard of the periscope stand, where I am
outlining here with the laser pointer and the area
over here.
Remember the FT of the Watch is about right
here, approximately. People that would be standing
just inboard of him, where I am circling now with my
laser pointer filling up the starboard side of the
control room would all block him from talking easily
to the arbitrary place we placed the CO here and the
254
officer of the deck here but generally you would
expect them somewhere on the con, although they could
be elsewhere.
Q Admiral, would you have expected FTOW if he
thought the visitors were a barrier to communication
to ask them to move?
A I certainly would.
A physical barrier is not insurmountable,
particularly when you have an urgent report.
So there is no question that the visitors
presence although perhaps a passive deterrent was not
the only reason here, there was something else going
on, and I am still not sure what that something else
was except from some of the interviews I got the
impression that this point in the game the CO was
talking very directly to sonar. He was either
physically going to sonar, asking the XO to go into
sonar, or he was talking to sonar, and for whatever
reason, the FT of the Watch felt that the CO had the
picture he wanted to get from his discussions with
sonar, and that the FT of the Watch was not part of
the communications loop.
So it was some mixture of physical barriers
from people, and the FT of the Watch kind of feeling
-- I don't know -- almost like he was benched in the
255
game at that point in the game from being a part of
it.
Incorrectly so. Clearly, he should not have
felt that way. He, in my opinion, should have taken
it on his own volition to volunteer this information
just as it would be helpful for the OD to go observe
this information, but for whatever reason, this fire
control information, again, at the n-th hour, is
developed the range has dropped way in from out here
around 15,000 yards, to inside of 5,000 yards for
only a few minutes time, and the ship is distracted
at periscope depth. A lot of things going on in a
short amount of time.
Nevertheless, this is key information that
didn't get to the CO or officer of the deck.
VADM NATHMAN: Counsel, this just
sticks out in my mind. You talk about physical
barriers, and you talk about reports receiving
reports of the fire technician of the watch.
Now his reports go to the officer of the deck,
is that correct?
THE WITNESS: Yes, sir. His reports
should go to the officer of the deck.
VADM NATHMAN: Okay, so regardless
of how busy the CO was, the officer of the deck
256
should have still received reports, and the physical
barrier side, it doesn't prevent the FTOW from
speaking up, regardless if somebody is standing if
his way, does it?
THE WITNESS: There is no reason
why he shouldn't speak up period, his primary duty is
the assure the safety of the ship.
He was the one analyzing the contacts. He had
information that should have told him that the
contact was close or potentially close.
Remember these are arbitrarily solutions in the
machine and not necessarily true but it certainly was
an indicator and for whatever reason he didn't relay
that information.
I just want to add it's not real clear to me
when this range was out spotted to 9,000 yards. This
last data point on this whole graph white before the
collision is 9,000 yards and in interviewing the FT
of the Watch, he indicated to me that he out-spotted
the range, based on the reports by the OD and the CO
that they had no visual contacts.
That would be a logical action because again,
these are not ground truth solutions, these are
potential solutions, and he thought his potential
solutions had fallen apart when the CO and the
257
skipper told him he had no visual to beyond the
visual horizon for a contact just prior to the
collision.
Q Admiral, in reviewing the actual data logs,
were you able to determine if he out-spotted before
or after the collision took place?
A When I had signed out my report, my
understanding was it was before. I have subsequently
talked to Commodore Bias, that was done after the
collision. Now it's very close in time, so I think
that's a matter for the court to examine further.
Q Admiral, again, if the "as do" had been working
the repeater, would that have automatically displayed
the fire control screens that the FTOW had been
looking at so this data would have been repeated on
the as do for the OD?
A No, the "as do" is strictly sonar data, the raw
data. The fire control data is, however, readily
available on the starboard side of control, should
you choose to look at it, or should you get reports
from the operator to you that it's occurring.
Q Is that something that is a matter of routine
that the OOD should be doing in addition to looking
at the as do, should he be looking at the FTOW
displays in order to get the complete picture along
258
with the other information he's got?
A Yes.
Q Sir, what time did Greenville leave periscope
depth?
A Greenville left periscope depth at 13:40.
That is indicated by the arrow here on the blue
track of Greenville. And it's the annotation,
conducts emergency deep for training, commences turn
left to 340.
Q And can you tell us what happened on Greenville
when she ordered emergency deep?
A The captain was on the periscope and ordered
the emergency deep and directed to go to 400 feet.
The default would be 150 feet otherwise from that
direct order. Anybody on the scope can order
emergency deep. That is how we train because that's
the person that can **
That's why the skipper ordered the OD to go to
400 feet instead of 150 to set up for the emergency
blow. The captain was doing a couple of things when
he did this.
First of all, he was getting down quickly to
set up to quickly do the subsequent emergency blow
before the surface picture changed and degraded, and
secondly, he was demonstrating an impression
259
evolution of how rapidly these ships can go deep when
they sense a need to from periscope depth.
Q Did the Greenville change course as she went
down to emergency deep?
A Yes, she started to turn left.
This was based on a recommendation from the nav
picture to the captain of where the best course was
to go to to once surfaced, head back to the barn.
And it's a logical question and a logical decision to
start heading towards the -- the point where you want
to transit back to home port after the evolution.
Q How well did she execute emergency deep?
A Despite the fact that there were distinguished
visitors on a few of the controls, they were in a
very passive condition, actually. They were closely
supervised and it had no bearing on this collision,
in my determination.
The procedures were followed exactly and the
ship did a emergency blow in a normal manner which
requires controlling the rudder, controlling the
angle up on the ship to between 10 and 20 degrees,
placing the air in both forward and aft ballast tanks
for a set amount of time, ten seconds, and she did
all of that very well.
Q And sir, when she executed the emergency
260
surface, and the collision occurred, can you describe
to the court where she struck Ehime Maru on her way
up?
A Yes. The ship -- the Greenville initially
struck the Ehime Maru my guess is probably somewhere
near the bow with the portside of her hull just aft
of the sail, and then as she continued upward with
her momentum that she is the Greenville -- the
Greenville's rudder sliced through the hull of the
Ehime Maru and caused the rapid flooding and the loss
of the Ehime Maru.
Now the top of the rudder of the USS Greenville
is especially hard steel because in the horizontal
slow surfacing under ice scenario, it needs to be not
to be damaged when you breakup through the ice when
you have to surface through ice, so that is part of
the ships structure that is hardened to do that.
Q So did Greenville detect contact Sierra 13 the
Ehime Maru during her ascent?
A No, there was no question in my mind that the
Greenville did not know Ehime Maru was there until
she hit her. I am sure this was a terrible shock,
and the first that anyone on the USS Greenville
anyone on the Ehime Maru was there was when the
collision occurred and that was the first indicator.
261
ATTY A: That is all the questions I
have, Mr. President, concerning the collision.
And at this time I think for a recess, sir, and
you may want to announce to the court what the plans
are.
VADM NATHMAN: Do you plan to
introduce any others, counsel?
ATTY A: Sir, what we would like to
have marked as next court exhibits in order are the
following Navy instructions. We have copies for the
parties, parties' counsel, and they regard SECNAV
Instruction 6420.44 Alpha. Section 0405.
The next is OPNAV Instruction 5720.2 Lima.
Embarkation in US Naval Ships.
The next is CINC-PACFLT Instruction 5720.2
Mike. Embarkation in US Naval Ships.
The next is CINC-PACFLT out-boarder 201, AMEX
Fox Trot. Appendix 7, entitled, Embarkation of
Visitors.
The next is come SUBPAC Message 012343 Zulu,
January 2000, entitled 2000 public affairs telling
the Pacific submarine story for a new millenium.
And finally, we have the come SUBPAC chief of
staff Memorandum 00-1 entitled, Standing Orders and
Policy While Embarked.
262
And as I said, Mr. President, copies of those
will be distributed to parties and parties' counsel.
VADM NATHMAN: In a moment we'll
recess the court, but let me explain to the parties
and to the counsel for the parties and for the court
what we're going to do tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning, at zero 800, I intend to
convene the court at the foot of the brow for USS
Greenville. We'll do it in working uniforms, so it
will be khakis for most of us, we'll going to the
ships control room and we'll bring Admiral Griffiths
aboard, and we'll have him describe -- I think it's
important for us to go over there in person and you
can see the size of the party here, and the court
itself.
It may a simulate the crowding that maybe the
captain of the Greenville saw himself but we are
going to have Admiral Griffiths describe the duties
of the control and the watchstanders, and we won't
take a lot of questions there, although we will bring
the recorder.
After that the court will go to the submarine a
simulators and there we will review procedures for
surface and submersed operations to include emergency
deep, emergency surface, and emergency blow.
263
The court will be closed. The only folks will
be the counsel for the parties, the parties
themselves, and the court members and then we intend
to reconvene here at 13:00 tomorrow afternoon because
my anticipation is that will take most of the
morning. So I expect you to be on time so we can
start promptly down from the courtroom on the USS
Greenville.
Commander Waddle, I know it's difficult for you
to go back to your previous command, and if you
choose not to be on the control room tomorrow of your
previous command, I understand that, okay?
This court is now --
ATTY E: Sir, before you adjourn,
can we have an instruction to the witness not to be
discussing this testimony with counsel -- between
direct examination and cross-examination and this
tour of the ship?
VADM NATHMAN: You raise a very good
point. You will be so instructed. And we'll see
Admiral Griffiths tomorrow afternoon at 13:00 and the
members, since the counsel for the court has
basically concluded his introduction for the inquiry
you will see the members start with our questions and
we'll be able to start the cross-examination.
264
ATTY E: Very good, sir.
VADM NATHMAN: You're welcome. This
court is --
MR. GITTINS: I would just put on
the record. Admiral Griffiths, you know you are
still under oath, and you are not to discuss your
testimony with anyone until we reconvene back here at
13:00 tomorrow.
(The proceedings were adjourned at 4:45 p.m.)
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
|
