Fast Action Reporting Team

Stolen with permission from Dennis Largess
Reprinted from Sax and Violets. 

Besides the obvious duties of sailors at sea, there are also "collateral" duties. These can be easy, like making coffee for the mess, or really onerous like mess cooking (mess cranking) for months at a time. 

Back in 1975, one of those duties was Photo Intelligence (PHOTINT). Each ship had a regulation camera to make visual records of any intelligence opportunity. Now, that was a problem because the Navy was winding down from Vietnam. As people transferred to different ships, or left the service, we often got no replacements to fill the gaps. As a result, it was very challenging to get dog-tired sailors to do extra work when a Soviet ship showed up.

On the way to our Northern Europe cruise, the Captain recognized that the Photo Intel Team wasn't doing anything. It had become just a collateral joke. 

So, he sat me down and said I was the new Photo Intelligence Officer. And that it was my job to motivate the team to do good work. 

This was not welcome news, since I was already filling in for the position of Electronic Material besides my assigned billet, plus about six collateral duties. 

Seeing my face drop, the Captain gave me some advice: find a way to make the team enthusiastic - make it enjoyable and something they would want to do. 

"Gee thanks, Captain." I thought. Well, first trying to figure this out, I thought photography aficionados would be enthusiastic about taking pictures and using the authorized camera. 

There were some photo fans but the thought of possibly losing more sleep and using the POS regulation camera was not appealing. 

That left the other suggestion, to make it fun! 

At that time, the duty funny man onboard was Radio Chief Charlie Brown. He came across as an easy going guy and the Radiomen loved him. He didn't try to be a hard-ass and was easy to work for. However, if you screwed up, he became a towering chief at the drop of a hat. What made him my resource was his unending stream of jokes. None of which I can put down as they were clearly not meant for the sensitive ears of women or children. 

I had one idea to rename the team. Before leaving Norfolk, the Ringling Brothers Circus ran some radio ads. They had a problem with their animals. Every day the animals created about a ton of defecation. Getting rid of that for a week was very trying and not a little bit expensive. 

So they had a give away. "Do you have plants in your garden that need some TLC? We have lion poopoo for your lilies - we have zebra poopoo for your azaleas - we have elephant poopoo for your elms. Just bring your own bag and help yourselves." 

In the background, a horrified voice exclaimed, "You can't sell poopoo on the radio!" 

"Oh, we're selling it!  We are giving it away!" 

Silly as this sounds, it worked. Sailors that had no interest in the circus, or in zoos, laughed and went. 

Thinking about this and how they grabbed the sailors, it seemed something funny like that ad, might get some enthusiasm. 

After lunch one day, the wardroom was empty and I invited the Chief to hear me out. 

Well, living as pigs - like one does in the wardroom - he preferred to talk in the Chief's Mess, a.k.a. The Goat Locker. This was unexpected as the Chief's Mess is sacrosanct to us mere chauffeurs and I jumped at the chance. 

There didn't seem much special there that one could see, but the privacy was appreciated, and the coffee was definitely a grade better. 

I explained the problem to the Chief, and my idea was to rename the Photo Intel team to the Fast Action Reporting Team, or the FART. 

Well, his eyes lit up and he was off to the races. I would become the Fast Action Reporting Officer. the FARO. 

The former Photo officer would be the Primary Observing Officer, the POO. 

The senior enlisted photographer would be the Senior Naval Investigator for the FART, the SNIFF. 

The recorder was to be the Foto Edit Coder Enlisted Specialist, the FECES. 

He came up with like five more acronyms like these. I was writing fast to keep up. 

Well, to get it up and running we typed the idea up and looked for the Captain. He was sitting in his chair on the bridge talking to the XO. The Captain saw us waiting and asked what was up, expecting to hear that some radio equipment was down. 

I handed the typed up sheet over and he looked at it. He got that loopy, lopsided grin that showed occasionally. 

Handing it to the XO, "What do you think, Gerry?" XO took one look and seemed about to gag. 

Before he got a word out, the Captain said let's try it. And damned if it didn't work. Instead of another chore, it became some kind of a game. When the bridge spotted a Soviet, then over the 1MC announcing system, "Away the FART." And people volunteered to be part of the team. It sounds like something out of a boy's magazine, but as usual Captain Boorda knew his sailors.

One Submarine's Race to the Bottom

It has been a while since I had a new sea story for my collection.  This was submitted by Commander David Campbell, USN (ret) 

My boat the USS GUARDFISH and it was attempting a repair on the surface in heavy seas.  Where specifically is classified. A rogue wave came up at least 20 plus feet and broke over the Bridge with the bridge access hatches open. The hatches were open because the bridge was manned by the Officer of the Deck and his lookout. The top of the bridge, referred to as the sail on a submarine or fair water, is just 13 and 1/2 feet above the main deck in a dead calm. 

The sea state at this time was running at 4 -6 feet. When the wave broke over the boat sail it also drove the boat down and thus we were taking a solid stream of water down the down both the upper and lower bridge access hatches.  A cable is always running down these hatches which is connected for this class boat to the bridge control box which shows rudder angle and compass course from the gyro. 

USS Guardfish, Underway, planet Earth

This stream of water hit the bottom of the ladder in the Control Room and went both port, shorting out the MK 113 Fire Control console and starboard, into the ship diving console, then onto the Ballast Control Panel so we lost most of the ships control instrumentation. The fan room flooded through the outboard induction valve as were also surface ventilating the boat, which drained to the torpedo room, so we also had flooding in the Torpedo Room. 

The Diving Officer of the Watch yanked the bridge control box cable free of the bridge control box and then shut the lower bridge access hatch. The Captain now in Control ordered the outboard induction valve to be overridden to “SHUT”, as we had no control or proper valve position indication on the BCP (See above. The TLA's* are going to fly fast and loose now, ). An unqualified officer then ran into the bow compartment pushed the Fwd Aux. Room Watch stander out of the way, as it was his job to do the override, and then pushed override palm valve for the Fwd Group Main Ballast Tank Vent Valves, to open instead of the Outboard Induction Valve Palm valve next to the OIV (see above). This hydraulically opened the Fwd Group Vents. Thus caused the boat to start submerging with the OOD and Lookout isolated on the bridge due to the lower bridge access hatch being shut. 

Needless to say things got slightly dicey as the OOD and crew went through the process of overriding the OIV  and Fwd Group Main Ballast Tank Vent Valves shut, blowing the Fwd Group MBT Ballast Tanks to put air back into these tanks to keep the boat on the surface. 

The key point is the boat took a huge rogue wave over the bridge w/ the upper and lower access hatches open and the crew took actions to mitigate this casualty. Thus the boat DID NOT SINK and it took a short period of time to recover all systems and bring the boat back to full operational capabilities.

--Commander David Campbell

 *Three Letter Acronyms