No Higher Honor (44 page)

  
6
.
  
Hiro,
Longest War
, 15.

  
7
.
  
Crist, “Joint Special Operations.” Also Cordesman,
Iran-Iraq War
, 41: “Iran had conducted some 88 ship attacks in 1987, and 72 percent of these occurred in the shipping routes between the UAE and Abu Musa. All Iranian ship attacks from November 1987 to April 1988 were conducted in the southern Gulf, and nearly 50 percent were conducted at night.”

  
8
.
  
Letter, Rinn to Greg Rinn, 23 February 1988.

  
9
.
  
Interview, Dave Walker with author, 30 March 2004.

10
.
  
Admiral Less sent praise for the
Roberts
's work—and a word of caution against being too provocative.

11
.
  
Letter, Rinn to Greg Rinn, ca. 13 March 1988.

12
.
  
USS
Samuel B. Roberts
Deck Log, 3 March 1988; interview, Rinn; letter, Rinn to Greg Rinn, ca. 13 March 1988.

13
.
  
Richard Pyle, “U.S. Navy Frigate Fires at Suspected Speedboats,” AP, 6 March 1988.

14
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

15
.
  
Letter, Rinn to Greg Rinn, ca. 13 March 1988. Misdated as 5 March.

16
.
  
Interview, Tilley.

17
.
  
The Night Stalkers were formed in 1981 as the 160th Aviation Battalion, renamed the 160th Aviation Group (Airborne) in 1986, and again renamed the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) in 1990.

18
.
  
Squires, “Price of Protection.”

19
.
  
E-mail, Mike Roberts.

20
.
  
Bruhn, Saulnier, and Whittington,
Ready to Answer All Bells
, 115.

21
.
  
Aboard the
Roberts
there were fifteen officers and five surface-warfare watch stations: officer of the deck, junior officer of the deck, tactical action officer, CIC watch officer, and engineering officer of the watch. But neither the captain nor the executive officer stood watches, and the supply officer and disbursing officer took turns in the flight control tower. That left eleven officers to handle the five stations. Early in the deployment, Rinn had tried two-section watches—four hours on, and four off—and found his officers exhausted. So the captain switched to three-section duty—four on, eight off—and relied on chief petty officers to fill in the deck and engineering watches. (E-mail, Glenn Palmer.)

22
.
  
Squires, “Price of Protection.”

23
.
  
Letter, Rinn to Greg Rinn, ca. 13 March 1988. Misdated as 5 March.

24
.
  
Interview, Glenn Palmer.

25
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

26
.
  
E-mail, Palmer.

27
.
  
Interview, Palmer; interview, Rinn.

28
.
  
Interview, John Eckelberry with author, 26 October 2002.

29
.
  
Interview, James Muehlberg with author, 21 January 2002.

30
.
  
Squires, “Price of Protection.”

31
.
  
Ibid.

32
.
  
Randy Tatum and Ted Johnson, letter to
Wisner News Chronicle
, 14 April 1988.

33
.
  
Squires, “Price of Protection.”

34
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

35
.
  
Familygram, March 1988.

36
.
  
Preston, “Gulf Story.”

37
.
  
Alan Cowell, “54 Feared Dead on Two Oil Tankers in Iraqi Attack on Iran Terminal,”
New York Times
, 22 March 1988; “Attack on Iran Ships May Have Killed 51,”
Los Angeles Times, 22
March 1988; Richard Pyle, “Officials Say U.S. Crews Alert in Gulf,” AP, 22 March 1988.

38
.
  
Richard Pyle, “Frigate Shadows Landing Craft,” AP, 24 March 1988.

39
.
  
USS
Samuel B. Roberts
Deck Log, 24 March 1988; Mona Ziade, “Iraq Concedes Losing Land, Fires Missiles into Tehran,” AP, 26 March 1988.

40
.
  
Supertanker skippers tended to worry more about aerial and naval attack than mines, and when unencumbered by minesweepers, they tended to put the throttles to their pegs. With power plants built to move hundreds of thousands of tons, the supertankers could get up to twenty-five knots on the unloaded west-to-east run. Bringing them to a stop could take miles and more than half an hour. (Letter, Rinn to DE 413 Survivors' Association, 10 March 1988, reprinted in the organization's 20 April 1988 newsletter.)

41
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

42
.
  
Pyle, “Officials Say U.S. Crews Alert in Gulf.”

43
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

44
.
  
USS
Samuel B. Roberts
Deck Log, 28 March 1988.

45
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

46
.
  
Message, FFG 58 to USS
Exploit
, “Battle ‘E,'” 0640Z 13 April 1988.

47
.
  
E-mail, John R. Eckelberry to author, 12 December 2002.

48
.
  
Message, Commander, Naval Surface Group 4 to Commander, Naval Surface Forces, Atlantic, “Battle Efficiency Competitive Cycle 01 Oct 86–31 Mar 86 Award Nominees,” 0400Z 1 April 1988.

49
.
  
Message, Commander, Naval Surface Group 4 to Rinn, “Humpday Congratulations,” 1930Z 8 April 1988.

50
.
  
E-mail, Eckelberry.

51
.
  
PH1 Frank Gregory, “Surviving a Mine,”
Surface Warfare,
May–June 1999.

CHAPTER 9

  
1
.
  
Mussi, “To See the Dawn.”

  
2
.
  
E-mail, Reinert.

  
3
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

  
4
.
  
E-mail, Roberts.

  
5
.
  
Interview, Lester Chaffin with author, 8 February 2004.

  
6
.
  
E-mail, Pond.

  
7
.
  
Gregory, “Surviving a Mine.”

  
8
.
  
Preston, “Gulf Story.”

  
9
.
  
Interview, Walker.

10
.
  
Interview, Bent.

11
.
  
Interview, Walker; interview, Bent; NAVSEA, final report, 2–1.

12
.
  
Interview, Walker.

13
.
  
E-mail, Baker; GSE2 Randy A. Tatum, Written recollections for the NAVSEA investigators, ca. 16 April 1988.

14
.
  
Interview, David Burbine with author, 24 March 2004.

15
.
  
Interview, Van Hook.

16
.
  
John Sullivan, “
Roberts
Sails Back to Newport,”
Providence Journal
-Bulletin, 28 October 1989.

17
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, 6-49.

18
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

19
.
  
Friedman,
Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems
, 450.

20
.
  
If the
Roberts
's rendezvous with the tanker had been an hour or two earlier, the frigate might have floated right over the mine without setting it off. Tides in the central Gulf ran about eight feet, and extreme low tide was just forty-five minutes away. (Tide information calculated with
Mr. Tides
software by August Hahn.)

21
.
  
NAVSEA, final report.

22
.
  
Ibid.

23
.
  
Speech, Rinn to Fleet Damage Control Symposium, 26 April 1989, as reported in Rinn, “If You're Not Prepared, It's Already Too Late,”
Surface Warfare,
March-April 1990, 8.

24
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

25
.
  
E-mail, Roberts.

26
.
  
E-mail, Johnson.

27
.
  
E-mail, Raymond.

28
.
  
E-mail, Pond.

29
.
  
Interview, Walker.

30
.
  
George C. Wilson and Molly Moore, “Reagan, Aides Weigh Response to Damaging of Ship in Gulf; Evidence Indicates Iran Placed Mines Found in Area,”
Washington Post
, 16 April 1988.

31
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, 3–4.

32
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

33
.
  
Interview, Bent.

34
.
  
Interviews, Tilley, Walker; recollections, Tatum; NAVSEA, final report.

CHAPTER 10

  
1
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, 3–3, 7–18, 7–36. After the fire was out, the chilled-water system was brought back online.

  
2
.
  
Interview, Walker.

  
3
.
  
NAVSEA, final report.

  
4
.
  
Interview, Bent.

  
5
.
  
But Palmer kept many of the other CIC consoles shut down to preserve electrical power and reduce waste heat in the absence of air conditioning. ET1 James Muehlberg and other electronics technicians rigged fans to keep the circuits from overheating. (NAVSEA, final report; interview, Palmer; interview, Muehlberg.)

  
6
.
  
YN1(SW) Paul D. Hass, the ship's yeoman, kept track of the damage control effort for the bridge watch. (Letter, Hass to Pamela Rinn, 30 April 1988.)

  
7
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

  
8
.
  
Interview, Less.

  
9
.
  
Speech, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Carlisle Trost to U.S. Naval Institute's Annual Meeting, Newport, RI, 21 April 1988.

10
.
  
E-mail, Raymond.

11
.
  
Interview, Ford.

12
.
  
E-mail, Raymond.

13
.
  
Interview, Ford.

14
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, 3–4.

15
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, 6–47.

CHAPTER 11

  
1
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, 3–4.

  
2
.
  
E-mail, Reinert.

  
3
.
  
Rinn, “If You're Not Prepared”; The Ordnance Shop, “Historical Mishaps,”
http://www.ordnance.org/mishaps.htm
, 21 August 2004.

  
4
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, 6–16.

  
5
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

  
6
.
  
Conversation as reported in
All Hands
, August 1988. Rinn confirms this account. Less, however, said in a 2003 interview that he did not recall the exact words, but “I hope I didn't ask about abandoning ship.”

  
7
.
  
Mussi, “To See the Dawn.”

  
8
.
  
Interview, Tilley.

  
9
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

10
.
  
NAVSEA, final report.

11
.
  
NAVSEA, draft report.

12
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

13
.
  
Afterward, Rinn wondered whether there was a better alternative. The NAVSEA final report, 6–47, suggested using the wardroom, as is prescribed aboard U.S. Navy submarines.

14
.
  
Interview, Eckelberry.

15
.
  
Gutcher would later spend a dozen hours in the helicopter control shack, helping to guide the various aircraft that touched down on the flight deck, bringing aid and evacuating wounded shipmates. The shack protruded from the hangar, about fifty feet aft of the exhaust stack fire. (E-mail, Gutcher to author, 22 April 2004; interview, Rinn.)

16
.
  
E-mail, Bill Dodson to author, 22 April 2004.

17
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

CHAPTER 12

  
1
.
  
E-mail, Chaffin.