No Higher Honor (46 page)

14
.
  
Interview, Vice Adm. William H. Rowden (Ret.) with author 16 December 2004; Sargent, “Legend of the Roberts.”

15
.
  
Pyle, “Mine-Damaged U.S. Frigate Leaves for Home”; “Dutch Boat to Bring in Damaged Frigate,”
Portland Press Herald
, 7 June 1988.

16
.
  
Message, Commander, Joint Task Force Middle East, Less to Rinn, “Investigation,” 23 May 1988. “I know you will welcome Commodore Kaiser in Samuel B. Roberts style.”

17
.
  
Message, Commander, Naval Surface Group 4 to FFG 58, “Change of Command,” 17 June 1988.

18
.
  
Memo, EN3 Mike Tilley to Rinn, 8 June 1988.

19
.
  
Interview, Alan Sepelyak with author, 25 February 2004.

20
.
  
E-mail, Eckelberry.

21
.
  
E-mail, Chaffin.

22
.
  
“Roberts' Crew Is Home,” United Press International, 21 June 1988.

23
.
  
Flippen, “Crew of Ship That Hit Iranian Mine Returns.”

24
.
  
George Williams, “Costly Blow to US Navy,”
Guardian
(London), 23 June 1988.

25
.
  
Richard Pyle, “Mine-Damaged Frigate Towed Out for Loading aboard Cargo Ship,” AP, 25 June 1988; “Frigate Loaded aboard Dutch Cargo Ship,” AP, 27 July 1988.

26
.
  
Dockwise Heavy Transport Shipping Web site,
http://www.dockwise.com/?sid=47&project=48
, 4 August 2003.

27
.
  
Pyle, “Mine-Damaged U.S. Frigate Leaves for Home.”

28
.
  
E-mails, Ted Johnson.

29
.
  
“Roberts Welcomed Home to Newport,” AP, 1 August 1988. In 1999, the
Mighty Servant 2
collided with an uncharted granite pinnacle near the Indonesian island of Singkep. The heavy-lift ship rolled onto its side and was lost, along with five mariners and the offshore production facility it was carrying from Singapore. (
http://www.tertiary.net/sinking/
, 22 February 2003; “Maritime Casualties 1999 and Before,” Cargo Letter Web site,
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:9YT4BexkkGMJ:www.cargolaw.com/presentations_casualties_a.html+site:cargolaw.com+%22mighty+servant%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
, 22 February 2004.)

30
.
  
Command History, USS
Samuel B. Roberts
(FFG 58), 1988; “Spectators Greet the USS Roberts,”
Brunswick (Maine) Times Record
, 26 September 1988; Polmar,
Guide to Ships and Aircraft
, 16th ed., 247.

31
.
  
NavSource Online: Service Ship Photo Archive, “AFDB-3 ex ABSD-3 Sections, A through I,”
http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/6703.htm
; “BIW Dry Dock Proves Biggest GSA Giveaway,”
Portland Press Herald
, 11 January 1982; “BIW Hoping to Make Up for Lost Time,”
Portland Press Herald
, 16 June 1982; “New Landmark Takes Shape,”
Portland Press Herald
, 13 August 1982; “BIW Dry Dock Set in Place,”
Portland Press Herald
, 10 October 1983; “BIW to Investigate Why Dry Dock Broke Free,”
Portland Press Herald
, 4 April 1984.

32
.
  
Polmar,
Guide to Ships and Aircraft
, 143.

33
.
  
Friedman,
Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems
, vii.

34
.
  
“Gulf Frigate in Portland for Repairs,”
Portland Press Herald
, 26 September 1988.

35
.
  
The
Townsend
had been part of the
Roberts
's first convoy escort mission in February. (“On Board the Last U.S. Gulf Convoy,”
Christian Science Monitor
, 28 September 1988.) The total included 177 ship transits by reflagged tankers, 57 by MSC ships, 14 by other U.S.-flagged ships, and 4 by foreign flag ships. (Cordesman,
Iran-Iraq War
, 68.)

36
.
  
Command History, USS
Samuel B. Roberts
(FFG 58), 1988; Sargent, “Legend of the Roberts.”

37
.
  
“Hydraulic Rams Align Damaged Frigate for Repair,”
Hydraulics & Pneumatics
, February 1989. See also SPX Power Team Web site:
http://66.201.84.143/fullcat.php
; Landau and Lardie, “Repair of Damage.”

38
.
  
Command History, USS
Samuel B. Roberts
(FFG 58), 1988.

39
.
  
“Modern War Ship Crippled by Mine Begins Recovery,”
Portland Press Herald
, 28 December 1988; Landau and Lardie, “Repair of Damage.”

40
.
  
Command History, USS
Samuel B. Roberts
(FFG 58), 1989; Landau and Lardie, “Repair of Damage”; “
Samuel B. Roberts
Repairs Complete,”
Times Record
.

41
.
  
“USS
Roberts
Damaged in Sea Trials,” United Press International, 23 October 1989; Photo, “
Roberts
Sails Out,”
Portland Press Herald
, 24 October 1989;
“Workers Send Roberts Back to Sea,”
Brunswick (Maine) Times Record
, 17 October 1989; BIW press release, 24 October 1989; “Battle-Damaged Frigate Is Back in the Water,” AP, 13 April 1989.

42
.
  
Bath Iron Works was sold in 1995 to defense giant General Dynamics. Its new owner bankrolled the first major improvements to the shipyard in two decades. The sloping building ways were abandoned for a level concrete apron. When half-complete ships were ready for launch, they rolled on sturdy tracks into a dry dock, which lowered the hulls gently into the Kennebec River. In 2004 Bath failed to win the big surface-ship job of the new century: the design contract for the navy's next-generation DD(X) destroyer. Many observers believe the yard's future is in doubt. BIW's long history gives reason to believe otherwise.

EPILOGUE

  
1
.
  
Michael Ross, “Role in Gulf Bolsters U.S. Credibility, Ties to Arabs,”
Los Angeles Times
, 15 May 1988.

  
2
.
  
Javier Perez De Cuellar,
Pilgrimage for Peace
(New York: Palgrave, 1997), 169-70. Despite the cease-fire, Iran and Iraq never formally ended the war.

  
3
.
  
Craig L. Symonds,
Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles That Shaped American History
(New York: Oxford University Press), 317.

  
4
.
  
Ibid., 320.

  
5
.
  
Edward J. Marolda, “The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf,” Naval Historical Center Web site,
http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/dstorm/sword-shield.htm
.

  
6
.
  
Lt. Cdr. C. A. Donohoe, “Mines: Will They Sink the U.S. Navy?” Marine Corps University Command and Staff College paper, 1999.

  
7
.
  
Gregory, “Surviving a Mine.”

  
8
.
  
Cordesman,
Iran-Iraq War
, 63.

  
9
.
  
The
Providence Journal called
the heavy-lift operation “unprecedented.” It fell to Scot Joseph, who had been one of Kevin Ford's cooks aboard the
Roberts
, to set the record straight. “Has it been that long that the
Journal
forgets one of Rhode Island's own naval high points? It was only 12 years ago,” Joseph wrote the newspaper. (Letter, Scot Joseph to
Providence Journal
, 19 November 2000.)

10
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, es-5.

11
.
  
NAVSEA, final report, 6–19.

12
.
  
Interview, Rowden.

13
.
  
Interview, Rinn.

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———.
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———.
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