Greeneville’s mistakes
elicit guesses at source

A Naval expert says that
unit cohesion has been sorely damaged

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

Sank a Japanese fishing vessel off Diamond Head last February.

Grounded off Saipan in August.

Collided with a Navy transport off Oman on Sunday.

Three accidents in less than 12 months with three different skippers at the helm of the Pearl Harbor-based nuclear attack sub USS Greeneville.

So is it a streak of bad luck, or a series of unfortunate coincidences?

John P. Craven, who has spent a lifetime studying the relationship between the ocean and submarines, does not believe in any ship being jinxed. Craven is well aware of subs like the USS Thomas Edison, which surfaced under two different destroyers: USS Leftwich in 1962 and USS Wadleigh in 1982. Or the USS Houston, which sank the tugboat Barcelona off the California coast in June 1989 after it got tangled in a tow cable and then two days later got tangled in the fishing nets of another ship.

But as the Greeneville heads for the British-controlled port of Diego Garcia to assess its damage, Craven thinks the Navy has a bigger problem than the perception that the boat is unlucky.

"I think there is a problem of the loss of teamwork," said Craven, who was once the Navy's chief submarine scientist and has written a book, "Silent War," on his experiences.

"A submarine is not just a machine," said Craven, who in 1968 spearheaded the search for two sunken submarines: the USS Scorpion and a Soviet one. "It's a command and a crew."

The search for the two ships inspired Tom Clancy's first novel, "The Hunt for Red October."

Craven, who headed several Polaris sub-based missile programs, said he develops "scenarios" when trying to seek answers to any problem. In the case of the Greeneville, Craven believes the problem stems from the accident with the Ehime Maru on Feb. 9 that killed nine people. Craven believes the captain of the 190-foot Japanese vessel saw the submarine as it came to periscope depth.

"Any time a submarine comes close to the surface," Craven said, "it makes a wake the size of two football fields. You can't miss it, especially in choppy seas."

Cmdr. Scott Waddle, then skipper of the Greeneville, was simply following procedure when he went to periscope depth -- about 60 feet from the surface -- to determine whether it was safe to surface, Craven said. Then he took the sub down deep to 400 feet before performing a demonstration of an emergency blow for some visitors on board. The ship rose very quickly to the surface, right into the Ehime Maru. Waddle was relieved of command.

In Craven's scenario, Capt. Hisao Onishi, Ehime Maru's captain, probably saw the wake of the Greeneville and headed where Craven believes was probably the safest place in the ocean: the spot where the Greeneville had just submerged. Craven said that "while the Ehime Maru made a beeline for the place where the sub was last seen, the Greeneville chose to return to the same place to surface for the same reason."

"What else can explain the collision? What are the chances of a collision occurring?" Craven asks. "Absolutely zero."

He believes the Navy ruled out such a "scenario" because it did not want to upset the Japanese for "political reasons."

Craven said such an accident can be devastating to the morale of a crew who thought they were doing everything just right.

"The captain is slam-dunked," Craven said. "The crew is slam-dunked," referring to the actions of the Navy that stripped Waddle of his command and issuance of reprimands for five of its crewmen.

"Now what happens to the morale of that crew which watched its skipper do what he did with what it believed was with skill and dispatch?"

Craven said the problem is very subtle.

"You got to have a crew which has to have a top morale to carry out its mission. But when you have captains who now have to worry about the morale of his crew as well as his own career and place them on long patrols, human beings are not going to perform well.

"They are now working under a lot of stress."

A Navy spokeswoman at Pearl Harbor said she did not know how much of Greeneville's original 130 crew members from last February are still on board.

The Navy said the Greeneville was trying to transfer two of its crewmen, who had been authorized to return home because of a death in the family, when the accident happened on Sunday. The weather conditions in the Northern Arabian Sea were supposed to be rough, so Greeneville was probably maneuvering to the lee side of the Ogden for protection.

The Ogden was attempting to lower a small boat to pick the men up, and as the two ships maneuvered in close to each other, the Greeneville's port-side diving plane crashed into the aft starboard side of the Ogden, ripping a 5-by-18-inch slice in one of the transport ship's fuel tanks, below the waterline. About 16,000 gallons of diesel fuel leaked into the ocean, but Navy officials said the spill was headed away from land and the light oil would probably evaporate.

Cmdr. Lindsay Hankins, the third captain of the Greeneville in the last year, was in command.

In August, Cmdr. David Bogdan was bringing Greeneville into Saipan during rough weather when the submarine crossed an area where the water was less than 30 feet deep. A submarine generally needs at least 33 feet to operate. Bogdan was also relieved of command.