Christmas 1975 is Past

                                                                                                                       From My Memoires:      

Writer’s Note: I debated putting these words on paper. Some of the events described were TOP SECRET at the time, and had an indefinite declassification date. But given the course of events, I am comfortable relating things. All the ships, and the sub that were involved, and the enemy country are gone. Given the passage of time, the need to even consider classification may seem silly, but it is not.

            We pulled out of Naples on a chilly Monday morning. That would be Naples Italy, not Florida. The ship was Med moored to Molo Angoino, right in the heart of the city. Med mooring involves having the stern of the ship attached to the pier, with the rest sticking out into the bay. The ship is stabilized by putting down its two anchors. Med mooring is unique to Mediterranean ports, where space is at a premium. Italian piers are called moles, or “molo” in Italian. Not long before, the Achille Lauro, yes, that Achille Lauro, had been moored port side to, on the south side of the mole.

            The mole was a giant cement and stone pier, about five hundred feet wide, jutting out far enough into the inner harbor to put an ocean liner against her. Four navy ships would med moor to it, which means they would back up toward the mole, drop their anchors when they were out about fifty yards, then keep backing in until their sterns were up against the mole. They would put over mooring lines and fenders, and sit there, with some amount of tension on their anchor chains, quite secure. This method permitted considerable numbers of ships to moor in a small space. Getting underway was just as simple. A ship singled up its mooring lines, heaved around on the anchor chain, then took in the lines while barely steaming forward , housed the anchor, and off she went. It was easy, and even a cruiser required no tugs, though the Italian pilots union ensured that they got their pound of flesh, especially from a foreign navy.

            We had been to Naples before; it was essentially the home of the United States Sixth Fleet. Many sailors didn’t care for it, but there were many fine eateries and bars.

            Filthy as it was the inner harbor had a certain historic beauty, if you looked for it. Naples Bay was picturesque, overseen by Vesuvius, now long dormant and frequently snow covered. Once out of Naples Bay, we had to squeeze through the straits of Messina, watched over by Mt. Etna. Finally, having gotten through the straits, we were in the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west of Italy. It took all this to get out to where a battle group had room to stem and flex its muscles. We steamed past two active volcanic islands, Stromboli and Lipari. At night Stromboli’s volcano looked like a waterfall of fire. It was a tough time of year to be in the Tyrrhenian. The winds blew off the North African coast, churning up the seas into a short, steep chop. The East Med was spared this phenomenon, but from western Crete on to the straits of Gibraltar, the winter waters are choppy and windy.

             This was a period of the toasty warm Cold War. When the fleet got underway we played hard. But we were also looking over our shoulders just a bit. A little over a month ago the carrier John F. Kennedy and the cruiser Belknap had met in a fiery collision. Virtually all the ships in Naples had been in formation with Kennedy and Belknap when the collision happened.  Kennedy had been damaged, but had resumed flight operations within twenty-four hours. Belknap, on the other hand, had her entire superstructure reduced to a hunk of molten slag. She was now under tow to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for a major rebuild. [see my “A Night to Remember”]

            Where the Kennedy went, so went a Soviet intelligence collection ship, an AGI, but also frequently a Soviet destroyer. The AGIs were small trawler like vessels, and they were unable to keep up with a carrier task group if we decided to steam above our usual economical sixteen knots.

            We had been operating for a few days when Lt. Chip Boyd, our Operations Officer, hinted that we might be breaking off from the Kennedy for some independent ops. “It’s still LIMDIS (limited distribution),” he said, “I’ll know shortly.”

            Another day passed. Screening the Kennedy was strenuous work - steaming in station around the carrier whose movements seemed random, but were dedicated to launching and recovering aircraft.

            Sometime that evening we met in the wardroom. We were leaving the Kennedy battle group, steaming west at maximum speed toward Gibraltar. We would rendezvous with an oiler west of Minorca, then take station west of the straits. A Soviet Echo-II class sub was on its way to the Med from North Fleet. Our P-3C aircraft had tracked her down the coast, but lost her somewhere of the Bay of Biscay. We would pick her up just outside of the Med and track her through the straits.

            The approach to the Straits of Gibraltar is like a funnel. Ships head there from all points of the compass. As they enter the straits they are compressed, suddenly finding themselves in a traffic jam. Ninety per cent of the ships in that traffic jam behave, adhering to a traffic separation scheme printed in magenta on the navigational charts, but invisible on the water. This makes for a divided highway, avoiding collisions, just as a highway’s median does. The other ten per cent of ocean going vessels, plus ferries running between Europe and Africa disregard the separation scheme, and risk collisions. Transiting the straits required vigilance and occasional daring. Merchant vessels often seemed willing to risk playing the maritime version of bumper cars in these close quarters.

            We had an excellent idea of where to intercept our target based on intelligence. We took station north west of the straits, with our prairie masker system energized. This system streams bubbles through a system of holes running round the entire perimeter of the propeller. That prevents the prop from cavitating. Cavitation occurs above about twelve knots when the prop creates a vacuum which forms bubbles that subsequently collapse, creating a snapping sound. The masker system also streams a blanket of bubbles along the length of the hull, masking sounds made by the ship.

            The Echo II class was an old type, based on the first class of Soviet nuclear sub. They were a family of three types, the Hotel, Echo, and November class (the HENs). The Echos carried eight big anti ship missiles. This was part of the Soviet compensation for not having aircraft carriers. Unknown to me at the time was the fact that there were two Echos coming in. The Navy had stationed three ships to intercept them, along with several maritime patrol aircraft.

            We launched our helicopter, a small twin engine SH-2F Light Airborne Multi Purpose System (LAMPS). We set a barrier of passive sonobuoys, to intercept the sub. We set and walked three barriers. Our tasking order had given us an extra budget for sonobuoys, and we were using them.

            We struck pay dirt on day three. Our helo was airborne. It didn’t generally monitor the sonobuoys. It data linked them back to the ship, where we processed them using a sophisticated acoustic processor and trained analysts. The Echo’s 1950s technology propulsion plant sounded like an underwater freight train. Once we had contact, there was no escape. The Echo was so noisy that we simply extended the sonobuoy line as she passed.

            Eventually the sub closed in on the straits. We would be unable to track it within the straits due to the noise of the high density shipping. Also, we could not safely conduct flight operations in there. The solution surprised me. Up until now, we had kept our distance. The sonobuoys were in close proximity to the sub; our helo maintained altitude sufficient to link the buoy information back to the ship. The ship remained well clear of the sub. The sub was completely ignorant of our presence. Now we increased sped to close the sub. We dropped one more expendable bathythermograph, a device that measures the temperature of the water as it drops to the bottom, yielding a temperature versus depth profile. We quickly used that to recalculate optimum active sonar ranges. At six thousand yards we went active with max power on our sonar. I expect that the ears of those Soviet sailors were ringing, and kept ringing for quite some time. Having been unaware of our presence until that moment, it took the Echo a few moments to react. They began to maneuver wildly, in an attempt to escape our active tracking. But we had them. We had moved in to optimum tracking range before going active. We knew where the thermal layer was that she would use for cover. Being off watch at this point, I went to sonar to take a look. Our senior sonar techs were there. We weren’t just tracking this guy. We were pounding him with extra noise.

            The leading sonar tech had a grimace on his lips. “This is no ordinary Russian skipper,” he hissed through his cigarette. “He’s creative. If we hadn’t gotten up close an’ surprised him, he’d a gotten away, I reckon.”

            I was a green ensign. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I knew that we were having all the fun, and the Russians down there were not.