THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9702020113
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 194 lines
In the shadow of the gigantic carrier Enterprise, the men and women of the supply ship Seattle are moving lethal weapons as fast as the mother ship can dish them out.
Sea Knight helicopters are erupting from the carrier's deck and taking turns plunking down thousand-pound bombs, three to a crate, on the Seattle's fantail.
Cables fore and aft are swinging their loads between the ships as the fast-moving Atlantic rips below.
Then a wave climbs the side of the ship in a wall of white water that obliterates the Enterprise.
And the fork lift operator drops a long steel cannister on the deck.
``Don't worry,'' the ship's boatswain, Gary Hagood, the man in charge of the deck, sings out. ``It's only missiles.''
This is only one of more than a thousand loads of bombs, missiles and other munitions being dug out of the belly of the Enterprise and transferred to the Seattle in a dangerous choreography that tests the mettle of several thousand people.
When a carrier goes into the yard for repairs, as the Enterprise will in a few weeks, its vast storehouse of explosives can't be kept on board - not with welders' arcs and sparks flying.
Instead, they must be offloaded - and the safest place to do that is at sea, where the mountain of explosive weapons involved poses no threat to taxpaying civilians.
The only way to do it is very, very carefully.
``I don't sleep at night,'' says Cmdr. George Rodriguez, the Enterprise's weapons officer, or ``gun boss,'' one foot resting on a bomb crate. ``If we damage a missile, c'est la vie. But if we hurt one of these kids, that's unforgiveable.''
His second-in-command, Lt. Cmdr. Vince Siefert, plunks his steel-toed boot on the crate as forklift vehicles roar into life and begin moving bombs around him. ``Ordnance safety regulations are written in blood,'' Siefert says. ``Someone gets killed and they write a new regulation.''
Over a two-day period, as the venerable Enterprise steams out to deep water, her eight nuclear reactors humming, the Seattle must dance alongside and take on 2.5 million pounds of deadly cargo.
Sandwiched in are two sessions of carrier take-offs and landings and, late one evening, an unexpected request that at first prompts a no and finally a yes.
At 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, her flags snapping in strong southerly winds, the Enterprise slips her bonds at Pier 11, slides around the corner into Hampton Roads and rolls out to sea with a helicopter for escort.
Already, crates of weapons are rising on aircraft elevators and blossoming on deck.
Gray skies turn the ocean coal black as the Seattle, a 795-foot fast combat support ship based in Earle, N.J., emerges through the haze and stands off to port.
The Seattle is one of the workhorses of the Navy without which carriers would be next to hopeless. They're usually on the giving end, supplying fuel for gulping jets and helicopters, weapons for the aircraft and food for the crew. This time, the ship and her crew of more than 600 are on the receiving end.
Some of the weapons will be stored at the Naval Weapons Station in Earle, others will be handed off at sea to the Carrier George Washington.
Today, there's already a potential problem. The ships will eventually be joined by cables to steam less than 200 feet apart, but in order to operate that close to each other and avoid dangerous pressure waves from side-by-side hulls, they must reach deeper water.
Deeper water lies to the east. But winds are from the south, steady at a brisk 28 knots, and the ideal conditions for helicopter lifts are winds on the bow, not directly off to starboard. The pilots want to know if there's any chance of turning toward the wind.
On the bridge, the carrier's skipper, Capt. Michael Malone, is keeping an eye on deep water ahead and a front sneaking up behind.
Pete Williams, the ``air boss'' who oversees flights off the deck from the small control tower - ``Climax Hotel'' - upstairs, tells Malone the pilots would ``prefer'' winds on the nose instead of on the side of the ship.
There's much back and forth about this and Malone has let it go on as long as he cares to. ``I'm not talking about preferences,'' he says with a tone as flat as the carrier deck. ``I'm talking about procedure.''
Shortly after, from his glass tower overlooking the deck, Williams picks up the phone. ``The winds we have are the winds we have to live with,'' he tells the pilots. ``You can modify your position as you come in.'' There's no more discussion.
The choppers - big, tandem-rotored machines older than many of the pilots flying them - take to the air immediately. As they approach the stern of the Enterprise, they flair sideways like skiers applying the brakes.
Below, a red-jacketed ordnanceman is reaching up into the wind with what looks like an oversized shepherd's crook, a second sailor hanging onto him for safety. The howling machine settles with utmost care. The rotors could take a life if the helicopter banked sharply.
The object is to secure the payload to a hook dangling from the chopper's belly, but wind makes this tricky. A gloved hand reaches down from the aircraft's ``hell hole'' and glides it home.
Then, as they must do dozens of times that morning, the men on deck sprint out of harm's way and the helos turn on the gas, the thump-thump of their rotors rattling rib cages, sending tiny pebbles of loose non-skid flying, adding more wind to the wind chill.
Three thousand pounds of steel-crated bombs swing into the air. Lt. j.g. Bill Hoyt, pulling up on the helicopter's throttle, quickly focuses on the job at hand. The butterflies in his stomach disappear.
From the Seattle's deck, crates seem to be descending so fast it almost seems the ship is being bombed. And its rolling deck, beside the unbudging, 1,123-foot steel wall beside it, adds to the sense of being overwhelmed by the job.
Seamen Jay Whetzel, 19, and William Lamont, 21, are taking turns running onto the deck, readying the crates for the forklifts.
`You've got to be careful,'' says Lamont. ``You think twice and act once; that's what I was taught.''
Now the ships have pulled alongside each other. A ``shooter'' on the Enterprise fires an M-16 rifle at the Seattle, with an adapter that carries a rope to the other ship. To the rope is attached a cable, then a stronger cable, then two sets of pulleys.
The bombs and missiles start really flying.
``It's interesting,'' Seaman Samuel Jackson claims after unhooking a container of missiles from the cable.
``Come on, `Bulldog,' tell the truth,'' one of his mates joshes.
``It's dangerous.'' he amends. ``You've got to know what you're doing or else somebody's gonna get hurt.''
It's not the danger of bombs going off - they won't explode, even dropped from considerable heights. It's people getting crushed or pushed overboard that worries their bosses.
On the Seattle's flying bridge, Capt. Steve Firks, bundled in brown leather jacket and gloves, watches the action below. ``I don't think the crew is worried about sitting on a powder keg or anything like that,'' he says.
Firks points down to the Enterprise with delight. A trio of young dolphins is leaping in unison before the great ship's bow.
The sky hooks and the cables rumble throughout the day and into early evening and the ships, 150 miles out to sea, disengage for the night.
The next morning, the temperature has dropped but the wind is right on the Enterprise's nose. Flights will commence at 6:15, Malone says over the loudspeaker. ``Be careful out there,'' he adds.
The helos have begun a ballet. With favorable wind and a day's practice behind them, the pilots have found a rhythm. Two of them dance back and forth between ships, picking up and dropping off loads in 30-second cycles.
``Hooked up and locked!'' the crewman calls out.
``Hookup men clear!''
Sunset, and they're still at it.
On the bridge, a cozy glow from instruments is the only light. Captain Malone wants none of the credit for how things are going. ``These young guys out there, many of them 18- and 19-year-olds, they work with noise, with danger, with cold - they're the ones that make it all work'' he says.
Blinking red lights trace the path of helicopters still hefting loads to the Seattle and in the control tower, Rodriquez, the gun boss, is looking through binoculars and counting. ``Forty-one lifts,'' he says, his voice weary after 14 hours of watching and worrying.
``Climax Tower, this is Hotel Tower,'' comes the voice from the Seattle. After all the offloading, he asks, could the helicopters please make seven practice landings on his ship? The Seattle has flight deck sailors who need deck-landing qualifications.
A groan is heard in the carrier's tower. The air crews are exhausted. The last thing they want is a new challenge. ``These guys have been up there since 6 a.m.,'' says Rudy Costanzo, the ``mini-boss'' of the tower.
``We need to get the helos back on deck,'' Williams, the air boss, tells the Seattle, ``so we're not going to do that.''
``Understood, Climax Tower,'' comes the equally tired, but disappointed, reply.
But the loads dwindle to a precious few. ``We're down to one and here he comes to get it,'' Rodriquez says, brushing his palms together.
``This time tomorrow, my feet will be up on the coffee table,'' says Costanzo.
There is more discussion with Hotel Tower about equipment that still has to be transfered and, finally, the air boss relents. They'll make the landings.
``There will be 30 happy flight deck members,'' the Seattle responds.
The job complete and the favor done, Williams picks up the phone and calls down to the deck crew.
``These kudos will probably fall on tired ears, but you guys did one great job today,'' he says.
The carrier's deck is clear and dark, invisible save for the dim blue lights defining its edges. The Seattle, a thousand feet off, is fading into the night.
Air Boss, still on the phone, says to the crew chief below: ``It's a wrap.'' ILLUSTRATION: STEVE EARLEY color photos, The Virginian-Pilot
Helicopter pilots and the Seattle's deck crew contend with huge
waves as they transfer ordnance from the Enterprise.
Left: After hooking cargo to a Sea Knight chopper, Enterprise
sailors get out of the way - fast. Right: Seaman Saurab Barua takes
a break atop 6,000 pounds of bombs.
STEVE EARLEY photos, The Virginian-Pilot
Left: The supply ship Seattle steams beside the Enterprise as it
takes on the carrier's ordnance. Helicopters help ferry the cargo.
Above: Cmdr. George Rodriguez watches the operation from the flight
control tower of the Enterprise. He spent months planning the
transfer of more than a thousand tons of ammunition.
When two big ships are this close together, huge waves are
generated. Seattle crew members use a system of cables and pulleys
to help move loads of missiles across the water from the Enterprise.
KEYWORDS: NAVY ORDNANCE OFF LOADING