0:00

Hey. And

0:07

when you download the Kroger app, you'll enjoy

0:09

over $500 in savings every week with digital

0:11

coupons. And don't forget FuelPoints to help you

0:14

save up to $1 per gallon

0:16

at the pump. Wanna. Want to save even

0:18

more? With a Boost membership, you'll get double

0:20

FuelPoints and free delivery! So shop and

0:22

save big at Kroger today! Kroger. Kroger,

0:24

fresh for everyone! Savings may vary

0:26

by state. Restrictions apply. Seasight for

0:29

details. The

0:33

first. Taste of Rear bourbon. Finally got

0:35

rooms on. That's. Nice. I guess

0:38

that gum we make this experience

0:40

easy. Girls. Girls as a one

0:42

stop spirit curator with an impressive selection exclusive

0:44

sought after rare and household names in

0:46

the realm of premium spirits and gym they.

0:49

Discover. The dup labor's of the year

0:51

now by going to casters.com and using

0:53

good welcomed and fourteen dollars off your

0:55

first purchase get ten dollars of your

0:57

first purchase with code welcome to in

0:59

ad guess.com. And we're

1:01

More was was standing behind his desk

1:03

room before I got two steps into

1:05

the role, he screamed at me that

1:07

I was the most disorders your morals

1:10

son of a bedsheet ever seen in

1:12

his life. This

1:15

is Cold War Conversations. If you're

1:17

new, hey, you've come to the

1:20

right place. Still listen to first

1:22

hand Cold War history accounts. Do

1:24

make sure you follow us in

1:26

your podcast app or joy now

1:29

he mailing list at Cold War

1:31

Conversations. Dot Com. Boom

1:34

Woodman is a former Us.

1:36

Navy Nuclear Missile Submarine commander

1:38

who shares he's rich experiences from

1:40

joining the Us Naval Academy

1:42

in Nineteen Sixty Four, to

1:44

commanding to submarines the Uss

1:46

James Monroe and the Uss Alabama

1:48

during the Cold War. Bill

1:52

opens up about his initial

1:54

aspirations, rigorous training at the

1:56

Naval Academy, and is challenging.

1:58

Interviews with the legendary. Admiral

2:00

Rickover, who directed the original

2:02

development of US naval nuclear

2:04

propulsion and controlled its operations

2:07

for three decades. He

2:10

gives detailed insights into submarine

2:12

operations, leadership challenges, operational readiness

2:15

exercises and the constant concern

2:17

of being detected by enemy

2:19

forces. We

2:22

also delve into Bill's personal

2:24

challenges and the pressures on

2:27

submarine families, his final patrol

2:29

commanding the USS Alabama and

2:32

reflections on newbies and literature

2:34

that accurately depict submarine life.

2:36

I'm delighted to welcome Bill

2:39

Woodman to our Cold

2:41

War conversation. My

2:44

father served as a chaplain in the US

2:46

Navy in World War II and

2:49

even though when I was growing

2:51

up I tended to be landlocked,

2:53

he always regaled me with the stories

2:55

of his service in the Navy. It

2:58

was about that time I started envisioning

3:01

myself on the bridge of a destroyer

3:03

charging through the sea one day and

3:05

the Navy and the desired

3:07

service always had an appeal to me. So

3:12

you've answered yourself a bit in that Tom Hanks

3:14

role in the name of the Navy now, the

3:17

recent one where he's the destroyer commander in

3:19

World War II. Yeah, Greyhound. That's

3:22

the one. Yeah. That's the one. So

3:25

you were thinking about submarines at that

3:27

point. You just wanted to be commanding

3:29

a surface ship or something like that.

3:31

Was that your aspiration? Yeah, that was

3:34

exactly my aspiration and I

3:36

would have been perfectly happy if that's the way it

3:38

would have ended up. When

3:41

do you join the US

3:43

Navy? Well, I reported to the US

3:45

Naval Academy in 1964. What

3:49

is the training like at

3:51

the US Naval Academy? Well,

3:54

it's very regimented of course and back

3:56

then it was all men

3:58

and it is strictly designed

4:00

to produce Navy pilots, Navy

4:03

surface officers, and

4:05

submariners. And that's basically what

4:08

it's in the business of doing. And

4:11

the class size is

4:13

always about, well, starts out

4:15

about 1,400. And

4:18

you just go from there. And it's about

4:21

one half of the Navy's officer input

4:24

each year. And

4:27

during that training, do they work out

4:29

what sort of arm of the Navy

4:32

you're going to be best suited for?

4:34

Well, it all comes down to your

4:36

senior year when they have

4:39

basically a decision night.

4:42

And you've normally generated on

4:44

your own towards either flying.

4:48

And if you're going to be a flyer, you're

4:51

going to go to flight school after that and you

4:53

have to pass physicals. And that's

4:55

already known. And if you're

4:57

going to be a surface officer, that is unknown.

5:01

And basically what they do, they have a list

5:04

of available billets. And

5:06

they start with their class standing and the

5:08

first guy that wants to go to service

5:10

gets a first choice. But

5:13

in order to get the submarines back

5:15

in that day, you had to

5:18

go to an organization

5:20

called Naval Reactors. And

5:23

at the time, Naval Reactors was

5:25

headed by Admiral Rickover. He

5:28

was the father of the nuclear Navy and

5:30

you had to pass an interview with him.

5:35

And I didn't even think of

5:38

going submarines. Well, the

5:40

real story is I was at the

5:43

Naval Academy. My academic standard

5:46

was about the middle

5:48

of the class. And

5:50

one reason why I was at this middle of

5:52

the class, I guess, was I

5:54

was a member of the crew team. And

5:57

that's a pretty heavy burden on your time and on

5:59

your life. your body. So

6:03

I was perfectly happy thinking that I would

6:05

just end up in the surface Navy. And

6:08

besides, I had no aspirations

6:11

of even thinking about

6:13

having an interview with that Marikover

6:16

because he only took

6:19

candidates from the upper 20%

6:21

of the class. When

6:24

my company officer suggested that

6:26

I apply and I

6:28

thought to myself, well, you

6:31

know, if I applied to nuclear power

6:33

training and that's what you had to

6:35

do. You had to go through Admiral

6:37

Rickover to get the nuclear power training in

6:39

order to get the submarines. If

6:42

I applied, I said and they

6:45

accepted me for the interview, at least I could

6:48

maybe someday sit down in

6:51

talking to a distinguished person

6:53

that recording history that

6:56

I had in fact met the famous

6:58

Admiral Rickover. So

7:01

I applied and got

7:03

accepted for the interview and

7:06

that in itself was a trial. But

7:09

to make a long story short, he

7:11

accepted me for his program, which really

7:14

kind of blew me away. And that

7:17

was the first time I thought about going

7:19

submarine-ers was about two weeks

7:21

before I had my interview with Admiral Rickover

7:24

in my senior year at the Academy. Wow,

7:27

wow. I mean Rickover is a

7:30

legend. Just

7:32

give me a bit of detail as

7:34

to what that interview was like. Oh

7:36

gosh, you may want to add a

7:38

part of this. Like

7:41

I mentioned, I was a crewman and before you actually

7:43

go in and see

7:45

the Admiral,

7:49

you get interviewed by three

7:51

of his associates and

7:53

these guys are brilliant. These are

7:55

the guys that designed the engineering plant and the

7:58

reactor plant and reactor safety. and

8:00

they really know their stuff. And there

8:03

always seems to be one question that comes

8:05

up, and that is, when is your

8:07

first think about going nuclear

8:09

power? Well,

8:12

the usual answer tries to tend

8:14

to, well, Sarah was shortly after

8:16

conception. And in my

8:18

mother's womb, I thought I would want to

8:21

train in nuclear power and, you

8:23

know, that kind of stuff.

8:25

And they got to me and said, well, when

8:27

is your first think about going nuclear power? And

8:30

I said, well, about two weeks ago, and my

8:32

company officer suggested this. It

8:36

turns out I took a lot of their

8:38

ammunition away because they couldn't

8:40

criticize what my academic record was

8:42

from the standpoint of why

8:45

didn't I take more of these courses or more of

8:47

those courses. But I

8:49

still had the issue of rowing crew. And

8:51

when I got called in for my first

8:53

interview with the Admiral, he questioned me on

8:56

it. And the question went

8:58

along the lines of, hey, if the Naval

9:00

Academy didn't have a crew team, would

9:02

it go away? And

9:05

of course, I somehow

9:07

blathered my way through that answer. And

9:11

that interview was over,

9:14

and I was dismissed from his presence. And

9:18

the guy that escorted me and

9:20

said, what did you think about the interview? And I said,

9:23

well, if the Admiral was trying to get

9:25

me to quit the crew team to join his organization,

9:28

I was not interested in anyway.

9:30

So thanks very much. And

9:32

all's said and done. And he says, wait

9:35

here. He

9:38

went back into the Admiral's office, came

9:40

out shortly, called me back in. And

9:44

the Admiral was standing behind his desk.

9:46

And before I got two steps into

9:48

the room, he

9:50

screamed at me that I was the most

9:53

dishonest, immoral son of a bitch he'd ever

9:55

seen in his life. And

9:58

he kind of repeated that three different ways. threw

10:01

me out of his office and

10:04

I went and I was escorted to

10:06

another room where I sat all

10:08

alone to contemplate my sins. Well,

10:12

eventually people came down to

10:15

ask me what I had done to offset the admiral.

10:19

I don't remember

10:21

much of those conversations but

10:24

about the fourth person that came down to

10:27

ask me that same question. I looked

10:29

very senior and I said, sir, I

10:33

have to confess that my

10:35

immorality is only

10:38

surpassed by my confusion. At

10:41

that point, he left the room, shut

10:43

the door, and started laughing. I

10:48

finally got escorted back to see the honor and

10:50

I was invited to, if

10:52

I wanted to speak to the admiral one more

10:55

time, would I like to do that? Did I

10:58

have something to say? Well,

11:00

I had no idea what I was going to say

11:02

but I said, of course, I'm

11:05

a midshipman, I'm ready to go and

11:07

I know that the wrong answer was

11:10

to say no. So

11:12

I went in there having no idea what I was

11:14

going to say. I went

11:16

and sat down in the duty chair

11:18

that you're supposed to go to and

11:21

sit down. The admiral spun

11:23

around in his chair, looked me in the eye and

11:25

said, do you have something you

11:27

want to say to me? I said,

11:31

yes, sir. I had

11:34

no idea what I was going to say but

11:36

that was not a problem because then he berated

11:38

me for about three or four

11:40

minutes and kicked me out of his

11:43

office and told me to write him a letter

11:45

every month, which I did

11:47

until I reported

11:49

it to nuclear power school. So

11:52

that was my three interviews in one

11:54

day with Admiral Ricco. Well

12:00

well he sounds like he lives up to

12:02

my expectations to what he'd be like. Well

12:04

he exceeded my. Brilliant

12:09

brilliant so you move

12:11

on to new to your power.

12:13

Yes. What's that like you know

12:15

did you have an engineering background

12:17

or a technical background. I had

12:20

a basically a generic background

12:22

at the time i was only required

12:24

to take a

12:26

minor. I took

12:28

a minor in operations analysis and at

12:31

that time no one

12:33

really knew what operations analysis was. But

12:36

it sounded like a neat thing

12:38

to understand and it was heavy

12:41

in math and things like that so i

12:43

had a fairly strong

12:45

basic background in the

12:47

naval academy course of

12:49

instruction. You know covers physics

12:51

and calculus and then biology

12:54

and things like that so

12:57

i had sufficient understanding

12:59

to go to the course. What

13:02

a course the training under edam

13:04

or recover what was six

13:07

months of nuclear power school. And

13:09

that's all classroom and that was

13:11

basically at the masters level. And

13:15

it was intense and i struggled

13:17

hard but i got through not who

13:19

are the high class ranking but i

13:21

was able to go on to the

13:23

next phase which was six months of.

13:26

Prototype training and there are a number

13:28

of land based prototypes that the animal

13:31

had developed to test

13:33

out his designs and

13:35

what's the design testing was over they

13:37

were used to. Train

13:40

and qualify the troops officers

13:43

and enlisted in

13:46

the actual operation of a nuclear power plant.

13:49

And that was six months and

13:52

you had to pass on a

13:54

fairly extensive written in the

13:56

oral examinations in order to complete that

13:58

and i got through. that and

14:01

that was a lot more exciting for me.

14:03

It was hands-on. And

14:05

then once you have finished

14:07

that training, you were to go to

14:09

submarine school. Submarine

14:12

school for officers was

14:14

usually six months long,

14:18

but they were so short of officers

14:20

for the submarine force that

14:22

they had reduced the submarine school

14:24

to six weeks. And

14:27

the only reason they reduced it to six weeks

14:29

is that's how long it took to process

14:31

a physical to make sure that

14:33

you were qualified to go on to a operating

14:36

submarine. So

14:38

it was a pretty long road,

14:41

not very long, but a year

14:43

and six weeks, just

14:46

a step aboard your first submarine. And

14:50

do they vet

14:52

you in terms of going on a

14:54

submarine to just check your, I don't

14:57

know, psychological state of being in

14:59

a confined space or anything like

15:01

that? Not that I'm aware of. About

15:05

the only thing that they did was

15:07

once you were in

15:10

nuclear power school, they took you to a

15:13

dive facility and push

15:17

you inside of a pressure chamber

15:20

and pressurize the atmosphere.

15:24

And I have no idea why, but

15:26

they went up to about, oh gosh,

15:29

I met maybe five or six

15:32

atmospheres. Couldn't stay there

15:34

very long. And

15:37

then here in this little cylinder, they

15:39

turned the lights out. And

15:42

the lights were out for, oh,

15:44

maybe a minute. They turned back

15:47

on, depressurized the chamber and sent you

15:49

on your way. And so

15:51

as far as physically capabilities,

15:54

to see if your ears could take the pressure

15:57

change, I guess, and existing in

15:59

a small way. space with the lights out.

16:01

That might be the only screening that I was

16:04

aware of. If

16:09

it was obvious that going through this extensive

16:11

training that you were not progressing

16:13

well or your attitude was really

16:15

out of line, I saw nothing

16:17

else other than that. Do

16:23

you think that was a Rickover

16:25

recommended test then, putting you

16:28

in a cylinder with the lights? I

16:30

have no idea. I

16:34

think he was more interested in the

16:36

engineering aspect and making sure that you were

16:39

qualified to operate his reactors and not

16:41

hurt him. You

16:43

don't want to do damage to

16:45

a reactor. It has serious consequences.

16:49

Yes, yes. So

16:51

you're posted to the

16:54

USS James Madison. That's

16:56

correct. What's your role then? What

16:58

do they let you loose on? My

17:02

first assignment was as

17:05

a communicator. That was

17:09

what I was supposed to get paid for. But

17:12

the real challenge was to

17:14

get qualified. The first qualification you

17:16

go for is engineering officer of the

17:19

watch. In other words, you get

17:21

qualified on the reactor plant and how to operate it.

17:26

That goes pretty quickly because after all,

17:28

you've previously qualified on an

17:30

operating nuclear reactor. You just

17:33

have to learn the systems that are involved

17:35

in the submarine that are

17:37

going to be unique to that class

17:40

of ship. Then

17:42

the next challenge is to qualify

17:45

as officer of the deck. Eventually,

17:48

when you got all that

17:50

together to qualify in submarines,

17:54

that usually takes about a year, sometimes

17:56

longer. Mine took about a year.

18:00

that's a lot of knowing the

18:02

systems of the entire submarine, knowing

18:04

the operating procedures. You

18:06

get to really know the boat. And

18:09

the thought is I was going through all

18:12

this training that whether

18:14

I had been a surface officer or a

18:16

submarine officer, I

18:19

felt pretty confident that

18:21

one, knowing the ship can stem

18:24

to stern and

18:26

knowing the operating procedures, both

18:28

engineering and topsides,

18:31

would have been important whether I had been a

18:33

surface officer or a submarine. This

18:37

is very similar to the Royal Navy where

18:40

you get your dolphins after you've passed that

18:42

training. And I think that the intention of

18:44

this is to make sure that if there

18:46

is some sort of emergency, you could work

18:50

in whatever location that

18:52

you were required to work in. Yeah,

18:55

that's exactly right. Now,

18:58

I guess you were quite lucky with

19:00

the USS James Madison because about I

19:02

think the year after you left, it

19:04

collided with a Victor class submarine up

19:06

in Scotland, didn't it? That's

19:10

correct. And I had been

19:12

making patrols out of Scotland

19:15

out of the Holy Lock on the Madison.

19:17

There was an AGI off the entrance there

19:19

to the North Channel and I imagine they

19:22

had coordinated and there was a little bit

19:24

of a bump. Did

19:26

you find it easy to adapt to

19:29

those long voyages

19:32

submerged on the

19:34

Madison? I didn't

19:36

find it particularly... That was never in

19:38

the front of my mind other than

19:41

the desire to go home and visit

19:43

my washes. But no,

19:45

you kept so busy. There was so

19:47

much to do. There was so much

19:49

training to do and that

19:51

the time didn't fly by. But I learned

19:54

very early on that the

19:57

one thing I didn't want to be doing

19:59

was to... wish my life away. In

20:02

other words, just dream about getting home.

20:04

I really wanted to be as productive as I

20:06

could while I was there and spend

20:09

my time with hopefully with

20:12

eventually good results here or to benefit

20:15

and not just, you

20:17

know, just dream about going home. You

20:20

had to put that, you had to submerge

20:22

that in your approach

20:24

to life on a submarine and

20:27

just focus on the mission and

20:29

in the training and in the

20:31

operations. And

20:34

so with your training, was the

20:37

ultimate aim was

20:40

for you to become a

20:42

commander? Right. Yeah,

20:45

one of the barriers that you

20:47

had to overcome or do was

20:49

whether you were going to be the

20:52

engineer of a nuclear power plant. You

20:55

had to qualify as a nuclear

20:57

engineer. And

21:01

that qualification meant

21:03

that when you said you were ready, you

21:06

reported to the Office

21:09

of Naval Reactors in

21:11

Washington, D.C. and you sat

21:13

down to an eight hour pencil

21:15

race or eight hour written examination.

21:18

And I can guarantee you that

21:21

every examination given in the

21:23

nuclear power program probably to

21:25

this day is not

21:27

multiple choice questions. It's all

21:30

right out and calculated and

21:32

handwritten. And the eight

21:34

hour pencil race is what we called

21:37

it. And I

21:39

kind of knew that I could never pass an

21:41

eight hour pencil race, but I

21:43

could answer one question at a time. And

21:46

with that approach, I was able

21:48

to get through. And then after

21:50

you've done the written exam,

21:52

you're interviewed at least two or three

21:54

times, again by the experts

21:57

of naval reactors. So

21:59

you... You have to

22:01

qualify as an engineer and

22:04

then as you work your way up,

22:07

I ended up being an operations

22:10

officer navigator from

22:12

my department head tour. That

22:15

meant going to school to learn how

22:17

the ships and inertial navigators work and things

22:19

like that. That was a

22:21

brief interlude before going back to see as a

22:24

department head. Then

22:26

when you qualified and were selected

22:28

for executive officer, the second command,

22:32

then you had to go through XO school.

22:36

That was fairly expensive. That

22:38

was probably about six months.

22:41

When you reported up to New

22:43

London, Connecticut where the submarine

22:45

schools were, and we went

22:47

through a lot of training up there, learning

22:50

how to do all the

22:52

administrative stuff that you're going to

22:54

have to deal with as an

22:56

executive officer and also getting some

22:59

time, damage control trainers and

23:01

things like that. Then

23:04

when you are ready to become

23:06

a commanding officer, you

23:08

have to go through PCO training, perspective

23:11

commanding officer training. Then

23:13

again, you go back to Naval

23:16

reactors and you spend 12

23:18

weeks reviewing

23:20

your specific plant and all

23:22

the nuances of that plant

23:25

that your ship's going to have. That

23:28

again involves an eight-hour pencil

23:30

race and interviews to

23:33

make sure that you're ready to

23:35

go, that you know your plant. Then

23:38

you report to submarine school and

23:41

you do a lot of

23:43

simulator training on how to shoot

23:45

torpedoes and go through

23:48

scenarios to shoot torpedoes and

23:50

things like that. Then

23:52

you go to sea and you go

23:55

out and you actually shoot exercise torpedoes.

23:58

It's like the Royal Navy's your

24:00

course, you know, you're put into

24:03

situations where you're actually

24:05

shooting at the warships or

24:08

at submarines or simulated submarines, which

24:10

is simulated by a torpedo

24:12

that sounds like a submarine.

24:15

So it's pretty extensive. And

24:17

once you pass that, you're sent on your

24:19

way and you take command.

24:24

Hi, this is Rhonda in Virginia. And

24:26

I support Cold War Conversations because I

24:28

think the work that Ian is

24:30

doing is critically important. I

24:33

think it's vital to record the

24:35

firsthand accounts of people who lived

24:37

and experienced the Cold War because

24:41

it illustrates history in a way that

24:43

a book never can. So thank

24:45

you so much for the podcast. It's my favorite

24:48

podcast and I look forward to it every week.

24:51

To be like Rhonda and help to

24:53

preserve these incredible stories of the Cold

24:55

War, as a monthly or

24:58

annual supporter, you'll be able to listen

25:00

ad free, you'll become one of our

25:02

community, get the sought after Cold

25:04

War Conversations drinks, Coaster is a thank you,

25:07

and you'll bask in the warm glow of

25:09

knowing that you're helping to preserve

25:11

Cold War history. Just go

25:14

to coldwarconversations.com/donate to find

25:16

out more. You

25:21

make it sound quite straightforward, but I

25:23

can imagine there's a lot of pressure

25:25

there because with the Royal Navy Parisher

25:27

course, the reason it's called Parisher is

25:29

if you don't pass it, you're off

25:31

submarines. Right. That's

25:33

right. So is that the same case with

25:35

the US Navy? It's yes. I

25:38

mean, if you really blow

25:41

it, so to speak, you don't proceed

25:43

onward. And what happens

25:45

more often than not, if

25:48

there is going to be a dropout, it's

25:50

usually self initiated by the individual

25:52

dropping out. I've seen

25:54

that happen. Oh, maybe once

25:57

or twice. One of my classmates

25:59

dropped out. for that reason. He

26:02

just self-selected himself out of the

26:04

program. He didn't feel that he was going to be

26:07

fit for command. I don't know too many cases

26:12

where people have been pulled out for

26:14

poor performance, but I'm sure that's

26:16

happened. Right.

26:20

How would you describe your command style,

26:22

Bill? Well, I'll give

26:25

you a couple instances. One

26:27

of the things you did in PCO course, reflective

26:33

commanding officer course, is you had to

26:36

show your command policy, and it had to

26:38

be in writing. Most

26:42

of my classmates had command

26:44

policies extended 12, 13,

26:48

15 pages of handwritten procedures. My

26:51

command policy was on one side of one

26:53

sheet of paper. I met

26:55

every member

26:58

of my crew, and I always had

27:00

one discussion with them. We

27:05

started out with, who is the

27:07

most important man on

27:10

the submarine? We

27:13

would go through that. Basically,

27:17

the basic answer was, on

27:19

the submarine, there is no

27:21

most important man. Every

27:23

man is required, must

27:25

do his job, do the best of his

27:27

ability. If the navigator doesn't

27:29

do his job, the submarine runs aground. If

27:33

the engineer doesn't do his job, something breaks

27:36

in the engineering department, and he can't fix

27:38

it. If the mess

27:40

cook, the humblest job on the submarine,

27:43

doesn't maintain good sanitary procedures,

27:45

the crew gets sick. Everybody

27:48

is required to do the best

27:50

of his, to the best of

27:53

his ability, the job he's assigned to do. Then,

27:56

having said that, I looked

27:58

at him and said, okay. Okay, now

28:01

that we agree on that, why

28:04

do you call me sir and why do

28:06

you salute me and call me captain? And

28:10

that was a little bit harder, but

28:13

eventually we got to the final answer and

28:15

the final answer was

28:17

the reason you call me captain

28:19

and salute me is because I'm

28:22

responsible for everything you

28:24

do. And

28:28

that's basically how it started, how

28:30

I started with the troops. And

28:34

one of my underlying items

28:37

in my one sheet of command

28:40

policy was at all

28:42

times I expect you to tell

28:44

the truth. No matter

28:46

how embarrassing it might be, whatever.

28:50

We're in a submarine, we have

28:52

a mission to do and if you make

28:54

a mistake for example or if you don't, we

28:57

need to know what happened so we

28:59

can deal with it. So

29:01

that's I don't know, does that give

29:03

you an approach for my command policy? Yeah,

29:06

yeah it does. I mean, you

29:08

know, base my view of submarines on

29:11

the hunt for the red October. Okay.

29:15

So, you know, I was expecting

29:17

you to be a bit of a Bart Mancuso,

29:19

you know, the Scott Glenn character. Okay.

29:25

How did you write that film? Yeah,

29:27

it's been so long since I think

29:29

that, yeah, I thought it was,

29:32

you know, pretty good Hollywood and,

29:34

you know, it was a good story.

29:37

It didn't really make a

29:39

tremendous impression on me. The

29:42

movie Crimson Tide about

29:45

the USS Alabama made kind of more

29:47

of an impression because when Zane Hackman

29:49

plays your role in life as commanding

29:51

officer of the Alabama, I

29:53

guess you've sort of arrived. But

29:56

yeah, I didn't think too much. I didn't mean

29:58

to tell him Clancy. The

30:01

author, I

30:04

happened to be a student at the National War College

30:06

and he came to speak. He

30:10

was an interesting character. He

30:15

had the ability to aggravate everybody in

30:17

a room in short order, but

30:20

he had great success as an author. He

30:23

really did kind of, I

30:25

would use the term prey

30:28

on military officers

30:31

in particular to try to get his data.

30:35

In fact, I can tell you one story about

30:37

him. One

30:40

of our instructors at the National

30:42

War College was sent to review

30:44

the Hunt for Red October book. His

30:49

job was to provide

30:51

an opinion of the book. He

30:56

called Tom Clancy up and he

30:58

said, hey Tom, he said we need to

31:00

talk. They

31:03

meet in Annapolis, Maryland and

31:05

Tom Clancy shows up with, I

31:07

think, literally a shopping cart filled

31:10

with all his bona fides. Those

31:13

are all the references he has to

31:15

show that anything in his

31:17

board comes from an unclassified

31:20

source. So he's

31:22

really uptight and he was kind of a,

31:24

boy, he was a Jesuit trained

31:26

individual anyway. He came

31:29

in and John Byron who was interviewing him

31:31

said, hey Tom, I've read your book and

31:33

there's two things in it that are classified.

31:37

Tom Clancy goes ballistic.

31:41

He starts going up and down. What's

31:43

that? Can't be. I

31:45

got all these references. And he finally looks

31:47

and John says, what are they? And

31:50

John says, I can't tell you,

31:52

they're classified. Brilliant.

31:55

Yeah, he was brilliant. He

31:58

was able to. to

32:01

get Clancy a little bit extended. Amazing

32:05

journey with Clancy. I mean, he was

32:07

the insurance salesman, I seem to think.

32:09

Exactly. Yeah,

32:12

I think he was. Well, boy,

32:14

he was fascinated with the military. Your

32:18

first command

32:20

is the USS James Monroe. Is

32:23

that correct? That's correct. So

32:27

being in command of an SSBN,

32:31

a nuclear missile submarine,

32:34

is there any extra

32:36

vetting that you have to

32:38

go through? No, not that I'm aware of. Not

32:41

that I'm aware of. By the time you've gotten there,

32:44

so many instructors have seen you, and you've

32:47

had so many exams. And if

32:50

you're still there,

32:52

hopefully you're good to go.

32:56

Yeah, I mean, I guess

32:58

things around like political beliefs and things

33:00

like that, they didn't ask

33:02

any questions around that? No, no,

33:04

never got interviewed on that. If

33:07

you had a dark side, usually

33:10

by then, it was

33:12

disclosed. But

33:14

again, not everybody that was selected for

33:17

command went to command. And

33:20

sometimes it was because the selectee said,

33:23

I'm not ready for it. I don't want to go. And

33:26

then sometimes I'm sure it was based

33:28

on political and religious beliefs. Can

33:32

you remember that first patrol where

33:34

you are in command?

33:37

Well, I do. It

33:39

was exciting. It was out of the Holy

33:41

Lock. And I loved the

33:44

adventure of going to Scotland. I

33:46

mean, I was there one time, and it didn't rain for

33:48

four days. And people are still

33:51

talking about that. Yeah,

33:54

it was kind of exciting,

33:56

that first patrol. And

34:00

you get to the point where, you know,

34:02

every, every, every time you've been on a submarine

34:04

before, there was always someone you could turn to

34:06

advice and you went, now all of

34:08

a sudden there's no one to

34:10

turn to. You've got to make the decision. And

34:14

that challenge certainly can

34:16

be challenging at some times. But

34:19

I'll tell you, if you, I'll tell you one

34:21

story that came out of my

34:23

first patrol. And that is

34:25

when I got back off of

34:28

the patrol and reported

34:30

back to the group in Charleston, South

34:32

Carolina. I was met

34:34

by the chaplain who

34:37

was a senior to me. He was a full

34:40

captain. I was just a commander.

34:42

And he said, Billy

34:44

says, I hate to tell you this, but

34:47

the dependence of your crew, the

34:49

wives of your crew really

34:52

made a bad name for themselves. They

34:55

were nasty to each other. They were

34:57

nasty to other submarine officers' wives. They

35:00

just, just did

35:04

not do anything to their own

35:06

credit other than to, to,

35:09

to just be off. Not

35:13

supportive. And

35:15

I said, well, thanks, Joe. I

35:19

got the idea. And

35:21

then I started thinking about that. And

35:23

then I reflected on what

35:25

might be the cause. And

35:28

I remember, stakily, that I was talking

35:30

to my wife. And about that time I had made

35:34

maybe 15 patrols or so. And

35:38

I mentioned to her that she was, honey, don't

35:40

be upset with me. I leave

35:42

for patrol in a week. And

35:44

she looked at me and she said, your

35:47

mind's already up with the boat.

35:50

We're just waiting for your body to catch up with

35:52

it. And

35:55

as I thought about that, it occurred to

35:57

me that there was something I needed to tell the crew.

36:01

So about two weeks before we went

36:04

on the next patrol, I assembled the crew

36:06

and I said, hey, look guys, here's

36:08

what's going on. We're

36:11

getting ready to go on patrol. We're going

36:13

to go on extended family separation. It was

36:15

100 days, we won't be alone. And

36:18

for 72 of those days, while we're at sea,

36:20

we're not going to be able to communicate. And

36:23

that's a hard time. That's

36:25

a tough time. And we're going to go

36:27

through this process of getting ready for that

36:30

separation. And we're going to say, oh,

36:33

this is terrible. I'm

36:35

leaving the family, da-da-da-da stuff. I

36:39

don't know, you know, the Navy's

36:42

making me do this and da-da-da.

36:45

And I say, what's happening, guys? Is

36:48

that attitude that you're conveying to

36:50

your dependents? Sometimes they

36:52

pick up on that and they support and

36:54

love you and they carry

36:56

that attitude with them. And sometimes

36:58

that doesn't serve well when

37:01

they interact with each other or other family

37:04

members or other members

37:06

of the submarine community. I

37:09

said, what you have to do, what

37:11

you really have to

37:13

do is you have to

37:15

convince your dependents, however

37:17

you do it, that you believe

37:20

in the mission that you're

37:22

about to undertake, that

37:24

you really believe

37:27

in it. And if you don't believe in

37:29

it, you come see me and I'll

37:31

get you off the boat. Nobody

37:35

ever came to see me. I

37:37

gave that same lecture

37:40

every time before I ever went on

37:42

patrol again. And

37:45

when I came back off that second patrol,

37:47

the chaplain met me and

37:50

he said he couldn't understand why it

37:53

was like night and day. The dependents

37:56

really supported and

37:58

performed well. So

38:01

that's the

38:04

thing I remember most about that first

38:06

patrol. Wow.

38:12

And you said there's no communication with

38:16

the outside world while you're

38:19

submerged. So the crew

38:21

can't receive any messages from home or

38:23

anything like that. No, let me correct

38:25

that. Now, I'll give you

38:28

another, well, sometimes

38:30

I've had the occasion to address

38:32

audiences about what's it like to be

38:34

on a submarine. And

38:37

I would tell them, well, if you've been an

38:40

enlisted man, for example, you probably had,

38:43

and you maybe have had 10 years, you're an

38:46

E-6, you're what they call a first-class

38:48

petty officer, and you're going to

38:50

go and you're a signed bunk

38:52

because you're fairly senior in

38:54

the submarine ranks as far as listed go.

38:58

You've got a milled bunk. And

39:01

if you reach up above you, there's another guy

39:03

above you. You reach below you, and there's a

39:06

guy below you. You reach across

39:08

the passageway, there's three guys on that

39:10

side. You reach up

39:12

to your head, above your head, and there's

39:16

three guys in

39:19

the front of you, and there's a bunch of guys

39:21

behind you. And you've got a little

39:23

locker, and when you

39:26

button up to go on patrol in

39:28

the submarine, we're going to

39:30

close the hatch, and you won't be able to

39:32

breathe fresh air or see sunlight for the next

39:34

72 days. And

39:36

you will not be able to communicate with

39:38

your dependents, but they can

39:40

send you a family gram. And

39:43

back in those days during the Cold War, you

39:47

could get up to six family grams of

39:49

patrol, and it was limited to something like

39:51

28 words, and

39:54

it was screened by the group to make

39:56

sure there was no bad news.

39:59

And that's... That's the communications that

40:01

you got. By

40:05

the way, while you're on board the submarine, you're

40:07

going to be on watch for six hours. Then

40:11

the other 12 hours, because

40:13

you're usually standing one watch in three,

40:16

you get to eat, you get to

40:18

clean, you get to train, you get

40:20

to drill, you get

40:22

to do all these things. We're

40:25

going out in an environment that is

40:27

not necessarily very benign. It

40:29

can be very rough and it's

40:32

the ocean. That's

40:36

what you have to look forward to. By

40:39

the way, if for example

40:41

you had somebody that was charged with

40:43

a minor crime and told that you

40:46

had to go to jail for

40:48

two months, or you could

40:50

go to on board a submarine and live

40:53

like a submarine, he would

40:55

refuse to go on board

40:57

the submarine because that would be considered

41:00

cruel and unusual punishment. So

41:02

try to put that in perspective. The

41:05

difference is all centered around the mission

41:07

and the purpose for being at sea.

41:11

So I hope

41:13

that answers the question. It

41:16

does. I guess you're using the

41:18

sort of keeping them busy and

41:21

focused to maintain their morale

41:24

and mental well-being as well during

41:27

those long periods. After doing

41:29

all this, my thought was that if

41:31

things are run right, the most bored

41:33

person on board the submarine is the

41:35

commanding officer. That's

41:39

a good point. How much did

41:41

you think about the destructive power

41:44

that you had on

41:46

board and that you would

41:49

potentially at some point receive

41:51

orders to unleash that? That's

41:54

a very good question. I

41:56

don't know if the answer will surprise you or

41:59

not, but I think to a mere extent, it's

42:01

man, you never really concentrated on that. You

42:04

knew two things. You

42:06

knew that if you ever launched your

42:08

missiles, that you would have

42:10

failed your mission because you

42:13

no longer were a deterrent. You

42:15

hadn't deterred anything. You

42:17

failed as a deterrent.

42:21

And the other thing you probably realized

42:23

that if you ever launched your missiles,

42:26

you probably didn't have anything to go back

42:28

to. So

42:32

you just kind of accepted

42:34

that as par for

42:36

the course. That was part of the routine.

42:40

And I'll give you another thing. A

42:43

thought occurred to me when I was on board

42:45

the Alabama in command. I

42:48

was laying in my bunk one night and

42:51

I thought to myself, you know, I'm shielded

42:54

from a nuclear reactor by

42:58

24 nuclear tip missiles. And

43:01

I got 400 feet of water above. It

43:04

was probably a mile, mile a half to the

43:06

bottom below. And there are about 130 men

43:08

on board and I'm in charge. There's

43:13

a, I can't think that way.

43:16

I have a mission to do and we just go

43:18

from, we just

43:20

concentrate on completing that mission and

43:23

if we're successful, we get everybody home

43:26

and train for the next time we go back to

43:28

sea. How

43:31

often did you have to go

43:34

through like weapons readiness tests and

43:36

basically run through the procedure for

43:38

a launch? Well, a weapons readiness

43:41

test called WSRT in a 72

43:43

day patrol, and that was about the average

43:45

length of your alert patrols, when

43:48

you're alert, you're in

43:50

constant communication, receive

43:53

only. You're

43:55

waiting and you're ready to

43:57

respond to that message you never

44:00

want to get. But

44:02

periodically at times, and I don't know

44:04

how they picked it, it

44:06

could be any time of the day or night, you

44:08

get a message that tells you to respond

44:11

to a weapon system readiness test. And

44:14

you go to battle stations missile and

44:17

you spin up the missiles, then

44:19

you get into a launch mode as

44:21

far as the ship's characteristics are concerned.

44:24

You count down the missiles and

44:26

go about your way. And

44:29

in the process of doing that, all

44:32

the data is recorded. The ship's data,

44:34

the missiles data, everything

44:37

is recorded and then sent

44:39

back to be analyzed to

44:41

see in fact if the

44:43

battery, if your missile battery was

44:45

in fact ready, if the ship was in

44:47

parameters, and if you called

44:49

the launch that you were capable

44:52

of doing so. And that determined

44:54

the effectiveness of your weapon for

44:57

the purposes of going to Congress

44:59

and stating your case for why

45:01

you needed funding and validating

45:04

the purpose of your mission. Now

45:07

there are other tests that you had

45:09

to look forward to. Once a year

45:11

as a minimum, you

45:14

had to go through an operational

45:16

reactor safeguards exam. And what

45:20

that involved was, is you would at the

45:22

end of patrol, usually you

45:24

would bring the ship in,

45:27

the ORST team, that's what they called it,

45:29

operational reactor safeguards exam. The ORST team would

45:31

board. It was composed of

45:34

a former commanding officer and

45:36

he would have, as

45:38

I recall, three post engineer

45:42

officers of other

45:44

submarines and surface ships. And

45:46

they would go through your entire

45:49

engineering department. You would

45:51

have basically every watch section would get

45:53

drills, then your

45:56

paperwork could be analyzed and

45:59

evaluated. you

46:01

go through oral examinations. It was

46:03

a two-day, very thorough

46:06

examination and that happened as

46:08

a minimum once a year.

46:10

And then about once a year,

46:12

you go through a weapon system

46:14

review to make sure

46:16

that your procedures and reviewing the

46:18

weapons, the maintenance procedures that

46:21

you could do were done

46:23

correctly and then you

46:26

could handle certain casualties. And

46:29

it was usually a one or two-day

46:31

exam post-patrol. And then

46:34

periodically you go through an operational

46:36

readiness test and you'd

46:38

have people come on board, usually

46:40

commanded by the squadron commander

46:43

or a group commander

46:45

and his assistance and they'd

46:47

evaluate the overall performance of your

46:50

ship and their

46:52

ability to fight your ship

46:54

and also to respond to any battle damage

46:56

that you might conceivably

46:59

receive. So you're under

47:01

constant evaluation examination. It

47:03

was par for the course. And

47:08

if you got a message

47:10

through saying, you know, we're

47:12

doing a readiness test, would

47:14

you know it's a test at that

47:17

point? You know immediately. You

47:19

know immediately, yeah. In fact, it

47:22

would be a man

47:24

battle stations missile for WSRT. If

47:29

it wasn't a

47:31

WSRT, it was

47:33

just man battle

47:35

stations missile. Yeah,

47:37

that's right. And

47:39

then periodically, and this happened

47:41

to me two times I

47:43

think, we got called off

47:46

patrol, went into

47:51

port, they pulled the warheads

47:53

off, usually two missiles,

47:56

put instrumented warheads on, sent

47:58

you back out to sea. push you in

48:00

basically an alert mode and send

48:05

you a message and you launch those two missiles for what

48:07

they called an OT operational

48:10

test. And that evaluated the ship's ability to get

48:12

the missile off

48:15

the submarine and for the warheads

48:17

to land where they're supposed to land. Wow.

48:21

I'd just be constantly checking. Are you sure

48:23

we've got the right one? Lined

48:27

up here guys. Are you sure? Absolutely.

48:30

I mean that goes through your mind and you

48:34

test the two-man control procedures. I mean

48:36

you test everything in that

48:38

sequence. The

48:42

rumor goes that it may be true. I

48:44

mean these things have multiple warheads

48:47

but they're all aimed at the same target. And

48:50

they evaluate where they hit. So

48:55

when they want to demonstrate to the

48:57

people in the Pentagon how

49:00

the pattern looked, they just take

49:02

a diagram of the Pentagon

49:04

and draw in where the hits would be relative to

49:06

the Pentagon. It

49:10

becomes a very real factor if you happen

49:12

to be in Washington DC to

49:15

check in with you. Hello.

49:18

I'm Craig Donald from Aberdeen and

49:20

I support Cold War Conversations with

49:23

a monthly donation because it marries

49:25

interesting historical content with fantastic storytelling.

49:28

Ian is a great gift as an interviewer.

49:30

He knows his subjects so that the conversations

49:32

are meaningful but he also allows guests to

49:34

tell their own story. Cold

49:36

War Conversations is part of my weekly routine and

49:38

I would urge you to make it part of

49:41

yours. Want to be

49:43

like Craig and help to preserve these incredible

49:45

stories of the Cold War? As

49:47

a monthly or annual supporter you'll be

49:50

able to listen ad-free. You'll become one

49:52

of our community. Get the sought after

49:54

Cold War Conversations drinks coaster as a

49:56

thank you and you'll bask in the

49:58

warm glow of the world. knowing that

50:01

you're helping to preserve Cold War history.

50:03

Just go to coldwacombosations.com slash

50:06

donate to find out more or follow

50:08

the link in the episode information. Now

50:13

in the UK our

50:16

nuclear missile submarines have something

50:18

called the letter of last

50:21

resort which is written by

50:23

the Prime Minister before the boat sails.

50:25

Right. And

50:27

it's instructions as to what the

50:29

commander is to do if contact

50:31

is lost with

50:33

the UK. Is there anything

50:36

similar in the US Navy?

50:38

I would say that there is. It's

50:40

basically in the operation plans that each

50:42

summary carries. Extremely

50:45

highly classified and basically

50:47

keyed to the defence

50:49

condition. That's where it starts.

50:53

I'm sure you're familiar with the defence

50:55

condition. I think it still applies. It's

50:58

1 through 5. DEFCON

51:00

5 is what we're normally in in peacetime.

51:06

And there are, you know,

51:08

it gives you the latitude to what you

51:10

can do and what you can't do. And

51:14

then as the defence condition goes

51:16

up and gets closer to

51:19

hot war which would be DEFCON 1. So

51:22

some of the obvious

51:24

things are provided

51:26

for. And that's

51:28

pretty easy to understand. And

51:31

that's not particularly highly classified. But

51:33

there are documents, operational

51:36

procedures, that if they get called

51:38

out or if they don't,

51:41

the circumstances are such that you

51:43

can't communicate with anybody because they're

51:45

not sending any message. Your communication

51:47

here is good. Those are the

51:49

plans that you break into and

51:51

those are again very highly classified.

51:54

But the situation has to migrate

51:56

in that direction. In most

51:58

cases, that's what you expect to have in the future. So

52:01

yeah, there is that

52:03

type of, that concern is obviously, the best

52:05

thing I would say is that concern is

52:08

covered. I

52:10

mean it's interesting that in the

52:12

UK it's very much a personal

52:16

and written letter from the

52:18

Prime Minister. It's

52:20

weird that we don't just have

52:22

an operational procedure

52:26

on the submarine for that eventuality which

52:28

is standard no matter who's in power.

52:31

Right, exactly. When

52:36

you're sailing out of Holy Lock

52:38

or wherever you happen to be

52:40

based, did you have many encounters

52:43

with the AGIs there? Yes, yes,

52:46

I had several encounters especially during

52:48

the Cold War. You could

52:50

almost count on it every time. Yeah,

52:55

we never really got into any

52:58

situations at work where we had to back

53:00

down or do some emergency

53:02

and maneuvering. But yeah,

53:04

we were observed. We

53:06

were observed. One

53:10

of the British submarine commanders

53:12

I interviewed mentions, they

53:15

oftentimes time their exits

53:17

when there was a football match

53:19

on because the AGI would

53:23

be closer to the Irish coast to pick up

53:25

the TV signal. Yeah,

53:28

I can believe that. We

53:31

had one submarine leaving Charleston that the

53:34

crew got together and had basically a

53:36

tube they could waterproof and put

53:38

documents in and they put

53:41

in several copies of

53:43

Playboy magazine and threw

53:45

it overboard and the AGI's dutifully picked

53:48

it up and I'm sure

53:50

they enjoyed the reading material as

53:52

well as the pictures. Did you have

53:55

any experiences where your

53:58

training and leadership were

54:00

crucial to dealing with a

54:02

particularly challenging situation. Yes,

54:05

I can say that that

54:07

is true. It's kind

54:11

of hard to explain but I'll

54:13

be glad to try if you

54:15

wish. It happened when I was on the James

54:19

Monroe, my first command. We

54:21

happened to be just off

54:23

Penn's End, Lands End and

54:25

we were doing a humanitarian evacuation.

54:30

And the humanitarian evacuation is where something

54:33

on the shore side has happened that

54:36

requires the sailor concern to

54:38

be removed from the ship

54:40

and sent home. In this case,

54:42

one of the chief petty officers, his father

54:44

had passed away and they

54:46

determined that it was necessary and humane

54:48

to bring him home.

54:52

So we're operating off of Penn's End

54:54

on the surface waiting for the helicopter

54:56

to come out and

54:58

the conditions were very marginal. Now

55:01

the conditions have been good. We would have done the

55:04

transfer to the helo on the deck

55:06

of the submarine, what we called

55:10

the turtleback. And it would

55:12

go right off the missile deck area.

55:14

Nice flat spot, very easy to do.

55:18

Conditions weren't favorable for

55:20

that. We had to do the transfer

55:22

from the bridge, which

55:25

is that sail, what we call

55:27

the sail that sticks up on the submarine

55:31

that makes the submarine

55:33

look like a submarine instead of just a tube.

55:36

And on that sail, they

55:38

have sail planes and 622

55:41

did. The class of submarine had

55:43

sail planes and they're very sturdy and

55:47

you're basically going to bring the helicopter

55:49

in and you're going to have the

55:51

transferring on the sail plane and

55:53

he gets hooked up to the helicopter and

55:55

he gets flown off. Well

55:58

that's how it's supposed to work. I

56:01

got one of probably

56:03

the strongest, most capable man

56:06

I could and asked him

56:08

if he would volunteer to be

56:10

the safety guy. We

56:12

put him in a life jacket and a safety

56:15

harness and we put him

56:17

on the sailplane. His

56:20

job was when the transfer person was

56:22

ready to go, he would

56:25

descend to the sailplane. The

56:27

safety guy would hang on to

56:29

him until he was hooked up to the

56:32

helicopter and taken away. That's

56:34

how it was supposed to go. So

56:37

we're out there in these rough seas. It's

56:40

very marginal. God bless them. The

56:42

helicopter pilots and the oil navy.

56:46

I don't know where they come from but boy they

56:48

got some talent. They

56:51

got some courage. I got a hand of tool. He

56:55

comes in and hovers right over

56:57

the bridge of the submarine. Of course we

56:59

have all our periscopes down and

57:01

all our masks down. I'm

57:04

standing up there in the little cockpit

57:06

area we have on the top of the sail

57:09

and I'm ducking his wheel. I mean

57:12

he's hovering that close. The

57:15

safety guy is out on the sailplane and

57:19

they send down a guy on a

57:21

cable. The

57:25

first thing, the guy that they send

57:27

down thinks that the guy on the sailplane

57:29

is going to be the transferee. He

57:32

tries to hook up my

57:34

safety guy to the

57:36

helicopter. One of the

57:38

rules of doing helicopter transfers is

57:41

you don't tie a man to a helicopter and the

57:43

ship at the same time. That's

57:45

a very wise rule. We

57:48

got that waved off. Believe

57:50

me it's hard to communicate because the helicopter

57:52

is hovering right over you. We

57:55

got our transferee onto the

57:57

sailplane. He got hooked up. and

58:00

both guys are pulled up into the helicopter.

58:03

And the helicopter stays there and hovers because

58:05

we still have to have the baggage, the

58:08

sailor's baggage pulled up. And

58:11

as the helicopter is hovering over us,

58:14

and we're kind of mumbling around trying to get

58:16

the baggage out to the sail plane, which we

58:19

do, I look ahead and

58:22

here comes a freak wave. I

58:25

couldn't believe it. I

58:28

shout at the top of the line, scream,

58:30

hang on. Of course, nobody can hear

58:33

me because the helicopter is hovering overhead.

58:35

I'm the only one that sees it. And

58:38

that wave crests right

58:40

at the top of the sail. It

58:44

must have been about a 30-foot wave. And

58:48

when I look over the side, my

58:51

man on the sail plane is no longer

58:53

on the sail plane. Someone

58:57

reports to the control room, man

58:59

overboard. And the first

59:01

action of the control room is to

59:03

raise the periscopes. And

59:05

I'm thinking, holy cow,

59:08

these scopes are gonna come up and we're gonna

59:11

entail that helicopter is

59:13

hovering right over the sail. I'm

59:16

happy. I don't know how

59:18

it happened. Man, we got

59:21

the word down, lower the scopes. They

59:24

did. Okay, we

59:26

got the helicopter safe. Now I'm trying to

59:28

look back in the wake to

59:30

see where my man is and he's not in

59:32

the wake. I can see the baggage, but

59:35

I can't see my man. And

59:37

then I notice that his safety harness runs

59:40

down between the sail

59:42

plane and the sail. And

59:45

I can just, you know, there's room for that

59:47

to happen. And I'm

59:49

hoping that he's at the other end of

59:51

that harness. And the next

59:53

time I look over, he's actually standing on the

59:55

deck. I said,

59:58

oh my word. We

1:00:00

got him down below. The

1:00:03

extent of his injuries

1:00:05

was about a quarter-size bruise

1:00:07

to his knee. It

1:00:10

all was safe and sound. So

1:00:12

it was good for him. But as

1:00:17

the helicopter is now

1:00:20

waved off, the helicopter is gone,

1:00:23

he's hovering over the baggage. I

1:00:25

said, hey, forget the baggage. Don't

1:00:27

worry about it. They

1:00:33

ignored me. They lowered a guy down on a harness.

1:00:36

He went and grabbed the bags and

1:00:39

pulled them up.

1:00:42

Man in baggage

1:00:45

got successfully transferred

1:00:47

to Pennzance. Now,

1:00:49

you can't train for that. No

1:00:52

one's going to go through that scenario. It's

1:00:54

not in the training manual.

1:00:58

That's the kind of casualty that you

1:01:00

want to have. You

1:01:04

have to be ready for because the

1:01:06

casualty that's going to really cause you

1:01:08

damage, you can't train for.

1:01:11

You just have to be ready for it. I

1:01:14

don't know if whatever it was, I

1:01:18

think the right decisions were made. In the

1:01:20

instance that they were required, I was just

1:01:22

grateful that nobody or no

1:01:26

equipment got damaged. Wow.

1:01:31

When you were on patrol, did

1:01:33

you at any point think

1:01:36

you were being followed or did

1:01:38

you detect other submarines?

1:01:41

It was questioned to think you're

1:01:43

followed. We always

1:01:45

felt that there was a possibility and we

1:01:47

always checked. Also,

1:01:50

there were certain maneuvers that could be

1:01:52

done that you could self-check. Then

1:01:55

periodically, there were procedures

1:01:58

that could be done. to

1:02:01

have an outside source check

1:02:03

if you had company. So

1:02:06

that was a constant

1:02:08

concern and you try to operate quietly

1:02:11

and in fact the commanding

1:02:13

officer has to give permission for any noise

1:02:15

making evolution that could radiate from the ship.

1:02:18

I mean any noise evolution,

1:02:22

be it an air charge or

1:02:24

discharging sanitaries, things like that. So

1:02:26

from that aspect and part

1:02:29

of the question, yeah, constant

1:02:31

concern, constant preparation, constant readiness.

1:02:33

If you wanted to avoid that,

1:02:36

as far as hearing other submarines,

1:02:38

yes, there were occasions where we

1:02:42

picked up the other guy.

1:02:46

And then as far as we know, we remain

1:02:49

undetected. He proceeded on

1:02:52

his way and we proceeded

1:02:54

on ours. Yeah,

1:02:57

yeah because you were on patrol

1:02:59

whilst the Walker's Spiring had betrayed

1:03:01

a lot of the submarine secrets.

1:03:04

That's true, that's true

1:03:06

and in fact my

1:03:08

duty just before taking

1:03:11

command was on a carrier group staff

1:03:14

where I was a submarine liaison officer.

1:03:16

And thanks to Walker and his group, I

1:03:19

was writing a lot of highly classified

1:03:22

message to the submarine operating authority because

1:03:24

I was providing advice to the to

1:03:27

the group commander on how to deploy

1:03:29

a submarine and

1:03:32

I'm sure every one of those was read by

1:03:34

the Soviets. Did

1:03:36

you have much interaction with

1:03:38

other navies? I did but

1:03:41

in the submarine forest it was only

1:03:43

very occasional. Teamwork, I

1:03:47

guess it was 76, which is a

1:03:49

big operation basically

1:03:51

off the coast of England and Norway

1:03:53

involving like 16 submarines and

1:03:56

the Royal Navy. I

1:03:59

had the privilege of being

1:04:01

on the staff of

1:04:03

part of the US Navy's

1:04:06

submarine group, we were

1:04:08

reported to the HMS Warrior in

1:04:10

Northfield, England. Northwood? Northwood,

1:04:13

Northwood. Yeah, I think so. In

1:04:16

the old World War II, you went like

1:04:18

six stories below ground to the

1:04:21

center. Yeah, just in North London, north

1:04:23

of London. North of London, yeah. I

1:04:25

mean, that was great. I interacted with

1:04:27

the French and obviously

1:04:30

the British and always

1:04:32

enjoyed that, always enjoyed that.

1:04:34

That was always a great

1:04:37

thing to do. So the

1:04:39

occasions did come by. When

1:04:42

I operated in the Pacific, I got

1:04:44

to meet up with some of the

1:04:46

Japanese submarine officers. And in

1:04:48

fact, I was on

1:04:51

board the USS Midway aircraft carrier when

1:04:53

I was on the Battle Force staff

1:04:56

who had a Japanese officer come up

1:04:58

to me and ask me, how did

1:05:00

Midway get her name? I

1:05:06

looked at him and said, I

1:05:08

don't know what you called it, but it was a hell

1:05:10

of a victory for us. And

1:05:13

then at that point, he did

1:05:15

the usual Japanese expression of embarrassment,

1:05:18

which is to suck air through his teeth. But

1:05:25

always enjoyed working with

1:05:27

other navies. But usually not

1:05:30

in the submarine force. It was when I was

1:05:32

operating in the Willis, not

1:05:34

directly related to submarines. Were

1:05:38

you involved in the fleet exercises when

1:05:40

you were in the Pacific?

1:05:42

Yes, yes. We got involved in portions

1:05:44

of that because we were with part

1:05:47

of the 7th Fleet that operated all the

1:05:49

carrier battle groups. And so,

1:05:51

yeah, we were involved with that. And

1:05:54

part of the staff operation was to

1:05:58

coordinate with the Japanese. with

1:06:01

a JMSDF Japan Maritime

1:06:03

Self-Defense Force exercises

1:06:06

involving any exercise that was done between

1:06:09

Japan and the United States Navy.

1:06:13

Were you on Fleet X-83? Probably,

1:06:16

yeah. The

1:06:19

reason I'm interested in that one is

1:06:21

it was one of the ones that

1:06:24

really got the Soviets on edge because

1:06:26

I think there was an overflight of

1:06:28

some US aircraft. Yeah,

1:06:31

I remember that one pretty well

1:06:33

because we had two carriers coming

1:06:36

in, two carrier battle groups coming in

1:06:38

from the west and

1:06:40

one coming in from the east,

1:06:42

from Hawaii, and we met in the

1:06:45

middle and headed towards

1:06:47

Petroffevlovsk. And yeah,

1:06:50

we saw a few bears

1:06:52

overflight and we

1:06:54

could tell that things were getting pretty exciting. There

1:06:59

was another exercise we did in the

1:07:02

carrier battle group where we

1:07:04

purposely went into the economic season of

1:07:06

North Korea. And you don't do that

1:07:09

without everybody in the

1:07:11

diplomatic chain chopping off and signing on

1:07:13

that. That's pretty closely watched

1:07:15

in that we were

1:07:17

welcomed with a regimental-sized badger

1:07:19

raid of the

1:07:21

Shilviet aircraft. So,

1:07:23

you know, things could get... I

1:07:27

mean, the potential was there. Nothing ever

1:07:29

happened, but the forces were

1:07:31

in a position to cause a lot of damage

1:07:33

if the blown had gone up. I

1:07:38

think Fleet X-83 was into the

1:07:40

Sea of Bohotsk, which was sort

1:07:42

of like a bastion area for

1:07:44

the Soviet SSBNs. Yeah, that could

1:07:46

be true. I know this... I

1:07:48

don't recall ever going in the Sea of Bohotsk, but

1:07:51

I remember getting pretty close

1:07:53

to the Kamcheka Peninsula. And

1:07:56

it was... We

1:07:59

had some... aware. It was a

1:08:01

tremendous, gosh, free

1:08:03

carrier battle groups together and all their

1:08:05

support ships and cruisers

1:08:08

and destroyers is just unbelievable.

1:08:10

I mean from horizon to

1:08:12

horizon, all you see is Navy vessels.

1:08:17

Yeah, yeah. A

1:08:19

sight you wouldn't certainly get with a Royal

1:08:21

Navy now. You mentioned sort

1:08:24

of like the strain of

1:08:27

dependence being at home.

1:08:29

Yeah. I guess your wife wasn't too keen on

1:08:31

the job that you had. Oh gosh,

1:08:33

she was a great support. I

1:08:38

married the right woman and

1:08:40

we were married together,

1:08:42

well actually, for about

1:08:45

four years before we spent longer

1:08:48

than three months together. And

1:08:50

you know, and then of course we

1:08:53

had a son, wives do

1:08:56

produce children. And in fact, if

1:08:59

you break out a calendar and

1:09:01

look at the submarine patrol cycle, the word

1:09:04

was that if you were

1:09:06

home when your wife gave birth, it wasn't

1:09:08

yours type of stuff. And

1:09:12

that was definitely a challenge. The land

1:09:14

support for those that were really

1:09:16

in trouble was great.

1:09:19

The Navy and the Navy wives

1:09:23

really looked after each other and

1:09:26

then the group was there to provide support

1:09:28

if extraordinary measures were

1:09:30

required. So you did all you

1:09:32

could and in fact, I think

1:09:35

that the best thing the wires had going

1:09:37

for them was they were all kind

1:09:40

of in the same situation. They

1:09:42

all understood the same pressures and

1:09:44

they helped each other where it was necessary.

1:09:47

At least that was my impression. So

1:09:50

your last command is the

1:09:53

USS Alabama? That's correct. How

1:09:55

did you feel on that last patrol?

1:10:01

That's a really good question.

1:10:05

What happened was I got on board the

1:10:07

Alabama. I expected

1:10:09

to make four patrols, at least four

1:10:11

patrols. And

1:10:14

it was in port. And I got

1:10:16

a call from the detailer and he said, Billy

1:10:19

said, what do you think about going

1:10:22

to Japan and being the chief

1:10:24

of staff for U.S. Naval Forces

1:10:26

Japan? And

1:10:29

we need to cut you a patrol

1:10:31

short so you only have

1:10:33

three patrols on Alabama. I said,

1:10:37

well, okay, let me check with my wife and

1:10:39

I'll let you know. So

1:10:41

I called up my wife and I said, honey, I

1:10:43

said, I got some good news. I got some bad

1:10:45

news. And

1:10:48

she said, what is it? I said, well,

1:10:50

they want to send us to Japan and

1:10:53

this will be my last patrol. Her

1:10:56

first question was, well, what's the bad news? And

1:11:01

I said,

1:11:03

dear, I said, what's that background noise

1:11:05

I hear? She said,

1:11:07

oh, I'm packing my bags. So

1:11:13

you can tell how that goes. But

1:11:16

the last patrol, I knew it would be the

1:11:18

last time I'd be in command at

1:11:21

sea. And

1:11:23

I dearly

1:11:25

felt the best of my

1:11:27

crew. I always felt

1:11:29

I had great crews and great

1:11:31

officers working for them. And

1:11:37

it was kind of sad in a way. But

1:11:40

then it was part of life

1:11:43

and time to turn it

1:11:45

over to somebody else and then

1:11:47

go on to other things. And

1:11:50

fortunately, I did have the privilege

1:11:53

of going to Japan for three years and

1:11:55

serving in a very

1:11:57

interesting village where I got to talk.

1:12:00

with a lot of, not only

1:12:02

navies, but with diplomatic

1:12:05

staffs and things

1:12:08

like that. In your navy

1:12:10

career, did you ever have a

1:12:12

situation where you thought this

1:12:15

could go really

1:12:17

pear-shaped? You

1:12:20

mean just go bad?

1:12:24

Yeah, go really bad. There

1:12:27

were times where I considered leaving

1:12:29

the navy. In fact, I

1:12:31

had applied to a university in

1:12:34

North Carolina and was

1:12:36

accepted and was offered basically

1:12:38

a fellowship. I would

1:12:40

have built up my salary alone,

1:12:43

simply because I

1:12:46

felt like I was really stuck in

1:12:48

my first command for

1:12:50

no real good reason. It was

1:12:52

sort of extended. Then someone

1:12:54

I listened to said, hey,

1:12:58

look, stick with it, see

1:13:00

what you can do and see what they offer you. They

1:13:02

weren't offering me anything until they offered me a chance

1:13:04

to go back to see as a department

1:13:07

head. Actually,

1:13:09

I was technically head of my peers in

1:13:14

achieving department head status, and the

1:13:16

challenge was there, and

1:13:19

that turned out to be a good decision. So

1:13:21

yeah, there were temptations

1:13:23

to leave, but

1:13:25

there was nothing quite as

1:13:27

exciting. Well, let me put

1:13:30

it to you this way. I always felt that

1:13:32

if you're in the submarine force, no

1:13:34

matter who you are, if you

1:13:36

compare yourself to an engine and

1:13:39

you are a four-cylinder engine, in

1:13:42

order to do well, you've got to hit

1:13:44

on all four cylinders. If

1:13:47

you're a six-cylinder engine, in

1:13:49

order to do well, you've got to hit on all

1:13:51

six cylinders. I mean, you've got to just keep going

1:13:53

all the time. You

1:13:57

want to be challenged. You want to accept

1:13:59

those challenges. And that's part of it

1:14:01

that makes it worthwhile. And

1:14:04

I couldn't see a civilian job coming

1:14:07

anywhere close to doing that. And

1:14:09

so I stayed in and I

1:14:12

look back on it and say, hey,

1:14:14

I'm grateful I stayed in. And

1:14:16

I also look back on it and say, how

1:14:18

the hell did I do that? So

1:14:22

were you commanding Alabama

1:14:24

when Crimson Tide came out? I

1:14:27

was, let's see, Crimson

1:14:29

Tide came

1:14:32

out before I was Alabama. Crimson Tide is

1:14:34

nothing more than a war game that

1:14:38

gets exercised. When

1:14:41

a submarine gets ready to go to sea, you

1:14:43

put them through a sequence

1:14:46

of messages and messages that

1:14:48

are received and don't receive regarding

1:14:52

preparation and simulation. You

1:14:56

know, launching of your missile battery, two-man

1:14:59

control. I mean, you've got to test that all

1:15:01

the time. And that's what

1:15:03

it was. It was very

1:15:05

similar to scenarios, some

1:15:08

scenarios that are approached with Crimson

1:15:11

Tide went through.

1:15:14

Yeah. Yeah. There's just a

1:15:16

promise they took the name of a boat

1:15:18

that actually existed because

1:15:20

I think the Department

1:15:22

of Defense weren't happy with the script

1:15:26

and so didn't cooperate with the production.

1:15:29

That sounds about right. It's

1:15:32

a boat. Well, there

1:15:35

were in the last scene where there's

1:15:38

the admiral's nest and there

1:15:40

are two captains on either

1:15:42

side of the admiral. If

1:15:44

I remember, I'd go to two captains or former

1:15:46

commanding officers of the Alabama. Wow.

1:15:50

Oh, great bit of movie trivia there, Bill.

1:15:52

Yeah. Fantastic.

1:15:55

Fantastic. Bill, is there anything

1:15:57

else that I should have covered?

1:16:00

Which i haven't covered what you were

1:16:03

saving up for me well i'll

1:16:05

share with you who's actually

1:16:07

a british. Group

1:16:10

of officers that came over and we got

1:16:13

a discussion with them making

1:16:15

some presentation with him why was in japan.

1:16:18

What was the first over

1:16:21

the three things you feared

1:16:23

the most when you are in command. Who

1:16:26

is this being the next world the

1:16:28

first one was being counter detected by the

1:16:31

enemy. Because

1:16:34

we can't wait to be compromised the

1:16:36

second was being counter detected by our

1:16:38

own troops and the third

1:16:41

was having the ice cream

1:16:43

machine go out. And

1:16:47

they thought that was good you

1:16:49

also asked me what movie do

1:16:51

i think best represents the submarine

1:16:53

service. And believe it or

1:16:55

not i think one of the most authentic movies

1:16:57

i've seen on the submarine service

1:17:00

especially about world war two is

1:17:02

das book. Yeah

1:17:04

i think that's excellent and the first time i saw

1:17:06

it was obviously in

1:17:09

german and didn't have subtitles it

1:17:11

didn't need subtitles it was that good. And

1:17:14

one of the what books where recommend one

1:17:17

of the better ones is

1:17:19

called wahoo w h

1:17:22

oo. About the uss

1:17:24

wahoo is written by richard okay

1:17:27

who had been the executive officer on the

1:17:29

wahoo and got off for

1:17:31

when i'm on its internal patrol. That

1:17:34

talks about much more leadership

1:17:37

and what you do when you make situations.

1:17:42

That's that's kind of about it. Yeah

1:17:46

so there isn't a book you'd recommend about

1:17:49

you know ssp and service in the

1:17:51

us navy during the cold war no

1:17:53

not not that i found you

1:17:56

just not written it yet. No,

1:18:00

thank God there's no book about

1:18:02

it because, you know, nobody

1:18:04

ever launched a weapon in

1:18:07

anger and that was its

1:18:09

purpose. That makes things pretty

1:18:11

benign and thank God that's the

1:18:13

way it ended up as far as, that's the way

1:18:15

it's ended up so far. Don't

1:18:18

miss the XO'd extras such as

1:18:20

videos, photos and other content. Just

1:18:22

look for the link in the

1:18:24

podcast information. The podcast

1:18:27

wouldn't exist without the generous support of

1:18:29

our financial supporters and I'd like to

1:18:31

thank one and all of them for

1:18:33

keeping the podcast on the road. The

1:18:37

Cold War conversation continues in

1:18:39

our Facebook discussion group. Just

1:18:42

search for Cold War conversations in Facebook.

1:18:45

Thanks very much for listening and see you

1:18:47

next week. Not

1:19:22

enjoying the ads? For

1:19:24

more information, visit coldwarconversations.com.