Jerry Hogan - Columnist
WOW!! I don’t know any other way to describe what it’s like to spend 25 hours on one of our nuclear aircraft carriers getting ready for another deployment to fight in this International War on Terror our country was forced into with the events of 9-11, 2001.
The USS John Stennis was commissioned into service in December, 1995, and is the seventh Nimitz-class nuclear-powered supercarrier in the US Navy. Since commissioning she has been deployed and involved in flight activities in the Persian Gulf in 1998, back again in 2000 for operations in Iraq, in 2001 and 2002 for operations in Afghanistan, and then once more in 2007. Her home port is now Bremerton, Washington, but when I joined her she was operating about 100 miles off the coast of southern California where she is going through final evaluations for conducting air operations with her assigned air wing of about 50 aircraft and 8 support ships.
Some statistics about the ship for those of you interested in those sorts of things…and these statistics are impressive. The ship was built at a cost of $4.5 billion and is expected to have a life of 50 years. During that time, she will need to have her fuel, which is nuclear, replenished only once. She is about 97,000 tons (the largest cruise ship is now 220,000 tons) and her flight deck where the planes all land and take off is about the length of three football fields. She has a ship’s crew of about 3,200 sailors, and then an additional 2000 people come on-board when the air wing arrives with their aircraft for training and deployment. She has her own 52 bed hospital with dentists and surgeons. The ship serves almost 17,000 meals a day operating her kitchens close to round the clock. She has four catapults where she can launch airplanes and during day operations she can land a plane every 90 seconds. Inside the ship there are about 2700 compartments, or rooms, where the crew lives and works. Eighteen decks are in the ship and she has 4 large elevators that are used to move airplanes from the hanger decks where planes are stored to the flight deck. She can make her own water of about 400,000 gallons a day and she can carry about three and a half million gallons of fuel for the aircraft which she has on-board. She is fast as her top speed is about 35 MPH.
But what’s it like to be on the carrier? Since the ship was operating off the coast of California, we flew out from San Diego and landed on the carrier. To do that, which sounds rather mundane and easy, is really a thrill! First we suited up with a “horse collar” life vest, goggles, and a cranial half helmet which protects the top and back of your head while enclosing your ears in large plastic ear muffs to deaden the sound. Getting this all on correctly, it was then load onto the C-2 COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery) aircraft for the flight. For safety reasons, all of the seats in the 26 man capacity plane face backwards and the load master during his safety briefing emphasized “Make sure you have your four point racing safety harness TIGHTLY fastened and your feet flat on the floor during landing.” No big deal because all of us are familiar with landing in an airplane. Not like this landing!
Because of the short length of the landing surface, it is necessary to get the plane down and stopped in about 250 feet. This means the plane comes in at its normal landing speed of about 120 Miles per Hour (MPH), snags one of four cables stretched across the deck, and is jerked to a stop. Since we were sitting backwards, it felt like we were going through the back of our chairs and then released into an empty vacuum…what an experience!
The back of the plane was then opened and we saw “organized chaos.” F-18 fighter planes, single and double seaters, E-6 Prowler electronic warfare planes, helicopters, E-2 surveillance radar domed early warning planes, plus our own COD on the flight deck. Crewman in seven different colored shirts all over the deck moving planes and getting others ready for takeoff. (We learned the seven colored shirts of the people on the flight deck all represent a different job for its owner: Brown is for plane captains who are responsible for the individual planes; Yellow for the “shooters” who launch the air craft and direct their movement on the deck; Green for people who hook up the aircraft to the catapults and handle the arresting cables; Red is for the people who load all the weapons on the planes; Purple who are the men and women who fuel the plane on the flight deck; Blue who chock and chain the planes to the flight deck after parking; and White who handle all the safety related jobs.)
We were quickly moved off the flight deck to the inside of the ship where we then started the process of seeing and learning about this warship. And what an experience it was. First, there are 18 decks on the ship. While we may not have hit each one, there were few that were missed! And of course, the movement through the ship to see and learn was not optimized to reduce climbing up and down stairs. (They actually are called “Ladders” in Navy terminology and I always wondered why. Not any longer. They are all at an up and down angle of about 70 degrees and you run the risk of hitting your head on the overhead on every single one of them!) And since they stagger flight operations at different times during the day and night, we often would be on the wrong deck to see them, so then it was climb up or down to be at the right place at the right time.
The Captain of the ship, Joseph Kuzmick, has been on-board since September of this year. And getting to be a commander of one of these carriers is not an easy task. Each year 6 highly qualified naval aviators are picked throughout the navy as “potential” commanding officers. They are in the rank of commander and have been successful in their career up to this point. First they go to 20 months of nuclear schooling where they learn about nuclear power. If successful, the next step is to be assigned as the Executive Officer of a carrier. In this assignment, he or she is responsible for all aspects of the running of the ship minus operations of both the ship and the air craft. If successful the individual is then assigned to the command of a deep draft ocean going war ship. Then if successful, he once again goes through another selection process to see if he will be assigned as commander of the carrier. Tell me these guys are not qualified and are not some of the best we have! And oh, by the way, most carrier commanders usually are selected for Admiral after completing their command tour.
The day finally ended at 10:30pm when night flight operations ended. It was then off to a two man stateroom; about 10x16 feet, one wash basin, two sets of built in drawers and closet, bathroom way down the hall (passage way). Big fear of the evening was having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bath room and then not being able to find the stateroom again!
Reveille was at 5: 40 am and the day started all over again. For me it was OK as it was a one time occurrence, but for the crew of the carrier it was the start of another day just like the other 6 days in the week where they work 16-18 hours a day, every day. The kids on this ship make you proud as you watch and see what they do. Most of them are 18, 19 and maybe early 20’s. They are on the flight line, probably one of the most dangerous places in the military, as they land and take off aircraft both day and night. One mental slip and perhaps a jet blast from a taxiing plane blows them off the deck of the carrier into the water 60 feet below, or a cable snaps during a plane landing and their legs are cut off as the cable whips across the deck, or they get their hand in the wrong place while hooking a fighter up to the catapult and they lose a hand. It’s not a place for the weak in body or mind or spirit.
And then it’s time for the take off to go back to California. Again we donned the same equipment as coming out on the COD. But this time we were going to be “shot” off the carrier with a catapult launch. What does that mean? We all get in the plane facing backwards, the plane is “hooked up” to the catapult, and then the steam driven catapult is released and the plane is flung into the air going from a dead stop to 120 MPH in 1.5 seconds! You talk about a thrill! Six flags will never duplicate that experience.
So what does one say and remember about a carrier visit. First you must be impressed with the sheer magnitude of the operation; planes landing and taking off, people all over the deck making it happen, the 97,000 ton ship going 30 MPH through the water, people in all the spaces committed to making “air operations” a success. Second is the size of everything you see; 4.5 acres of flight deck, steel everywhere, 5200 people on board, radar antennas circling in the air. But the single most impressive thing about the ship is the caliber of the people who man her and make it all work. Bright articulate officers, energetic young sailors who are sharp and eager to tell you all about their jobs and how important they are, aviators who have their act together and operate the highly sophisticated fighters and support aircraft in the dangerous conditions of carrier operations, and the general attitude of “we can make it happen.” What an uplifting experience for any American citizen who might have the opportunity to see the professionalism, dedication, and skill of our armed forces.
Find a way to thank these men and women of our services. We owe them so very much as they are there all day, every day, making sure the freedoms we so enjoy are protected and maintained.
Jerry Hogan is a retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel who lives in Heath, TX. Please contact him at 214-394-4033 or mailto:jerryhogan@sbcglobal.net to have the military story of your friend or relative told in this column.
