19 December 2020

When One War Ended….

Editor’s Note: Here in Virginia’s Piedmont, most of the snow is aligned in orderly clumps this morning. Those may depart before the endless series of Hallmark movies has been put to bed for what hopefully may be a bright new year. I can summarize: “cute lady returns to wholesome village that has lost its seasonal spirit, but through energy and faith, meets a handsome young fellow and saves the season with hopeful romance.”

By way of contrast, I only saw a couple cries for civil insurrection in the morning message traffic, so hopefully we can get on with life presently. In between hauling logs, dumping ashes and clearing the circular drive of fallen pines, I found myself working on some recently uncovered digital files. One was from the military coup in Korea, which was a fun account of curfew violations, assorted street violence and government overthrow. It was sort of reminiscent of last summer. Another one was an attempt to recall the reality of steaming someplace with three or four thousand close friends and watching the plate tectonics of global power lurch into something new. This one happened a while ago, back in 1989, and it is odd to see some of the same things happening again. This time to us.

But what follows is just an overview of the regularly scheduled adventure. If you are pressed for time, I will summarize up front. “We left Mayport, FL, a little late due to a modest fire that covered us in a seasonal white dusting of asbestos powder, got to the Med, hosted a Summit that ended a long chilly conflict and came home. We lost three sailors, two line-of-duty, one murder. Then life went on.” If you need more, it follows. But if you don’t, that is about it. Full story, filled with some amazing collisions of dreams and reality, will be published shortly. Forrestal, named for the first Secretary of Defense, is now razor blades and lengths of re-bar. Then, she took her name proudly. “First in Defense.” FID.

– Vic

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(An unusual formation of all the A-7 airplanes assigned to VA-37- The Bulls- during the 1989-90 Med Cruise).
Doling out this saga in this jumbled fashion could imply that Your Action Navy is populated by sybarites and lushes. Let me assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. The actual baseline of all this is that the mighty ships go out there, mostly operated by people who are doing their jobs for the first time. In the squadrons are pilots who have never been on Cruise before, nor operated in the pattern of cyclic launch and recovery of aircraft. They are called “Nuggets.”
There are veteran aviators aboard, of course, but they have never been Operations Officers or the XO, or Commander of a squadron before. There is continuity, of course, mostly provided by the senior enlisted personnel, the venerable Navy Chiefs, and the fact that everyone had at least watched someone do the job before, so the trick is to practice in steadily more rigorous exercise evolutions.
In my case, I had come to the job of Air Wing Intelligence officer from the Bureau of Personnel. That was another in a long series of career misapprehensions. I had been the Junior Officer Detailer, a job from which one would expect to be rewarded with some cushy assignment. My Boss, the late Dru Simpson, insisted that it instead would be a seagoing assignment to demonstrate integrity at BuPers. Within that stipulation, he let me name the job. I had always enjoyed showering with Naval Aviators, so I asked for orders to an Airwing to reprise my time in an F-4 squadron on USS Midway(CV-41). It happened that the intel slot in Air Wing SIX was coming open at the right time, and off for Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville the family went. I can say it now without fear of reprisal for orientation: after my time with CVW-5 in Japan, I was determined to be bi-coastal.
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(CVW-6 traced its origins to the mid-point of World War Two. Assigned to USS Forrestal (CV-59) in 1986, we took F-14 Tomcats, A-7 Corsair’s, A-6 Intruders, E-2 Hawkeyes, S-3 Vikings and SH-3 Sea King Helicopters to the show for what turned out to be the last Cold War deterrent cruise. In the post-Cold War budget reductions it helped make possible, the Air Wing was decommissioned in 1993).
The timing of the job-change further lined up with the work-up schedule, and we spent a year getting ready to deploy, doing increasingly complex tasks, first getting from the car to the ship, then as a ship-air wing team, and then as a strike force.
The dry and boring part goes like this:
17 Jul-11 Aug 1989: Forrestal took part in advanced phase training in Caribbean waters, with a brief stop in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands (26-31 July). The training taxed Sailors and Marines in many aspects of ship and air wing combined operations against a full spectrum of wartime threats, and also enabled the crew to operate with ships and aircraft already participating in Unitas 30-89, a series of exercises designed to integrate U.S. and Latin American naval forces. That was a blast, and I got to be Senior Shore Patrol in St. Thomas in the USVI. Leading a squad of armed sailors in search of a street person who was biting sailors while attired in tropical white long uniform was a moment in a lifetime.
24 Aug-9 Sep 1989: Forrestal participated in Fleet Exercise 4-89 in the Puerto Rico Operating Area. More fun with the VQ and composite bubbas, and a hop in a TA-4 to launch a drone for a MISSILEX. There was a spectacular end-of-exercise evolution at the Roosie Roads O Club that went through the night and into the next day. I got a chance to ride along and help the S-3 guys bomb Vieques Island.
9 Oct 1989: As the ship made preparations for deploying a fire erupted in her primary command and control trunk space. The blaze severely damaged electrical cabling in an uptake compartment. It directly affected navigation, weapons and ship control systems, though the rapid response of firefighters prevented further damage. The ship did not report casualties resulting from the conflagration which nonetheless delayed her departure. Electricians from the shipyards at Philadelphia and Norfolk lent their expertise to those of Jacksonville Shipyard, Inc., the prime contractor, and accomplished repairs to enable Forrestal to return to sea.
In the interim, Commander, Carrier Group 6 shifted his flag to guided missile cruiser Wainwright (CG-28) three days later and remained there until the carrier arrived in the Mediterranean, when he broke his flag from Forrestalon 12 November. I based my later VA claim for exposure to asbestos on the lagging that was ripped out unceremoniously, spreading the powdery stuff all over the areas under the island. We commissioned a special patch for the occasion:
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3 Nov 1989: Forrestal set sail for the Mediterranean. RADM Richard C. Allen, Commander, Carrier Group-6, broke his flag in the carrier in command of the battle group. The ship deployed for the first time with the AGM-84 Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM), and in addition, at one point Forrestal directly supported Donald B. Berry (FF-1085), which enabled the frigate to complete an exercise with the Israelis. The Slam was assigned to our pal Lutt-man as his baby, and we had a lot of fun playing with the capabilities in the deployed environment.
20-25 Nov 1989: The ship participated in Harmonie Sud Est with the French in the Mediterranean, her first such experience in that exercise. That is what we were preparing for as we arrived at Toulon.
27 Nov-3 Dec 1989: The final two months of the year proved to be a strenuous and exciting time for her crew as Forrestal provided crucial support to U.S. diplomats during the Malta Summit. President George H.W. Bush and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail S. Gorbachev met just weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall concerning the collapse of the East Bloc and its impact upon global security. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s habit of meeting key world leaders at sea during WWII purportedly served as the inspiration for President Bush to arrange the summit on the strategic island, the scene of fierce fighting during that conflict, and led to some media representatives describing the summit as “Malta to Yalta and Back.”
Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, Secretary of State James Baker, National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, Senior Director of Soviet, East European Affairs [National Security Council] Dr. Condoleezza Rice, and Ambassador to the Soviet Union John F. Matlock Jr., were among the leaders who also attended the summit. Warships from many fleets joined the proceedings at various times, and American Sailors shared the crowded Maltese waters with their East Bloc counterparts. Guided missile cruiser Belknap (CG-26), which received the honor of serving as the host ship for the chief executive, anchored barely 400-yards in Marsaxlokk Bay from Soviet guided missile cruiser Slava (CG-70) for most of the summit. Ships also operated within the Grand Harbor at Valletta.
The President arrived on board Forrestal on 1 December, and visited the flight deck, watched aircraft launch and recover, and ate lunch with crewmembers on the mess decks. At 1345 he began a speech to officers and crewmembers assembled in the ship-s hanger bay, including ADM Jonathon T. Howe, Commander-in-Chief, Naval Forces Europe, VADM James D. Williams, Commander, Sixth Fleet, and RADM Allen. The President was a decorated naval aviator from World War II. He amused his audience with good-natured humor directed at his fellow shipmates. Motioning to the officers nearby, he chided them: “I know that some of you have meals to eat. Frankly, I’d like to get Chairman Gorbachev to get an idea of what U.S. Navy food is like. Maybe not, since what I’m trying to do is ease tensions.”
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At 1425, Marine I touched down onto the flight deck of Belknap as President Bush arrived on board the cruiser in his helicopter, maintaining a hectic schedule. Stormy weather and choppy seas forced planners to cancel or reschedule subsequent meetings, however, resulting in some journalists referring to the conference as the “Seasick Summit.” The Naval custom is to bang the ship’s bell when a visiting dignitary departs with the name of the command he or she represents, i.e., “Forrestal Departing, Bong!” In this case, the departure announcement was “United States Departing. Bong! It was one of the most remarkable 1MC announcements I ever heard.
That morning began pleasantly but as the day progressed the weather deteriorated as a storm swept in with winds that peaked at 55-knots by the evening of the 2nd. The foul weather conditions forced the President to shift his meetings with the General Secretary from Belknap and Slava to Soviet cruise ship Maxim Gorky, moored pier-side and thus a more stable platform as the tempest battered ships in the harbor.
The admiral’s barge safely carried the President over to Maxim Gorky, but as the seas became rougher, they rendered boating conditions unsafe and compelled the President to remain on board the cruiser, where he chatted amiably with watchstanders on the foc’sle and fantail despite freezing rain and pounding swells that forced Belknap to shift berths by the 3rd. The crew persevered through the morning when the storm began to subside, which enabled them to transport the President over to the cruise ship to complete his meetings with the General Secretary.
President Bush publicly expressed American support for the Russian leader’s glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) policies, and both men acknowledged the lessening of Cold War anxieties. “For 45 years,” General Secretary Gorbachev noted, “we have been managing to avoid a big war. This single fact alone says that not everything was bad in the past.” Aircraft from Forrestal flew airborne early warning (AEW) and combat air patrols (CAP) overhead during much of the summit. President Bush also met with Maltese Prime Minister Fenech Adami.
I was amazed at the Summit, which appeared to end a conflict older than we were. And that it all happened right in front of us. I will tell you more about it when we get to it.
4-6 Dec 1989: Forrestal visited Naples, which became a unique evolution when she required simultaneous usage of a port anchor, 10 mooring lines, two kedge anchors, and two mooring buoys to stay relatively stable in the inner harbor of the crowded port. I was thoroughly delighted to be supercargo for that evolution.
13-19 Dec 1989: The ship participated in an amphibious exercise with the Tunisians. Aircraft from the carrier flew 193 sorties and FID coordinated USMC McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier IIs during a crucial phase of the exercise. I don’t remember anything crucial about it. We briefed ’em, launched ’em, and debriefed them when they got back. The Tunisians were nice.
11-13 Jan 1990: Forrestal took part in Operation Last Chance in the Mediterranean. I have no recollection of what it was now. Maybe the meaning is hiding in the manuscript.
17-21 Jan 1990: The ship participated in exercise Petit Poi in the Mediterranean. Ditto.
29-31 Jan 1990: Forrestal operated with the British, French, and Italians in the western Mediterranean. It was a blast, and part of our NATO Strike Force mission.
10 Feb 1990: The Naples Squadron of the Association of Naval Aviation held their establishment ceremony in the ship’s hanger bay. The usual suspects were ashore doing something fun with the Napolitanians.
7-8 Mar 1990: The ship and her crew trained with the Tunisians. They were a pretty professional bunch for a Maghreb State.
23-28 Mar 1990: FID took part with Dwight D. Eisenhower in the large NATO exercise National Week 90B in the western Mediterranean. On the final day USS Dwight D. Eisenhower dropped anchor in Augusta Bay to relieve Forrestal. It was great. Ike was a newer boat, but a less ready crew and we smoked ’em.
10 Apr 1990: AN Tony C. Smith fell overboard from No. 4 Aircraft Elevator near 32°18N, 70°59E. The weather was clear. Three helos from HS-15 launched and searched for Tony for over four and a half hours. They called-off the search more than two hours after dusk. Early the next morning, a sailor spotted AN Smith in the water near a life ring and a smoke float that a shipmate threw into the sea to mark his last known location. Although he apparently wore his required life vest, eyewitnesses could not ascertain as to whether or not he inflated it. Between Airman Lunh and Airman Smith, we lost two in the line of duty, and one kid who was shot in Marseilles by persons unknown. Three dead on the cruise.
12 Apr 1990: By the time Forrestal returned to Mayport she anchored at such diverse ports as Marseilles, Valencia, Naples, Cannes, Alexandria, Egypt, Augusta Bay, and Haifa, Israel. Man, did we have some fun ashore. More about the port visits when I get the manuscript together. This time of year, I will never forget wandering the empty square of Bethlehem, tourists scared off by a Palestinian boycott.
– Vic
Copyright 2020 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com