Front Burner

by Kirk S. Lippold

  The bridge area was relatively undamaged, but looking back at the face of the forward engine exhaust stack, I could see that the dome for the ship’s satellite phone antenna had been blown away, and on the mast, all the antennas for the radios appeared damaged, and one had been sheared off. Back inside, I walked down the ladder from the bridge and then forward up a port side passageway by combat system maintenance central towards Repair 2, crossed to the starboard side, and entered the combat information center, where the radars were dark and the space lifeless. I crossed through and went back into the port side passageway, going aft to where it was blocked by bent and twisted metal. At the entrance to the chiefs’ mess was the large hole cut by the rescue teams. I stepped inside, where the sight I met took my breath away. The entire space had been crushed, the aft wall on the right side smashed and bent and folded over the edges of the tables, the seats shoved underneath so forcefully that they had bent the table supports. It was obvious that anyone sitting there when the explosion hit would have been cut in half.

  I continued just behind the chiefs’ mess entrance to look at the watertight hatch leading down to the destroyed fuel lab, engine room, and general workshop. My flashlight shone down into oily water. The ladder frame and handrails were twisted and deformed with several steps sheared off and missing from the force of the explosion. No wonder Petty Officers Lopez and McTureous had chosen to crawl through a tear in the wall near the waterline and swim out of the hole in the side of the ship. Crossing forward again by Repair 2, I paused to see the locker again restored after the pandemonium that had earlier defined our day. Continuing on to the starboard side, I made my way down the starboard passageway before walking down the ladders leading into the auxiliary machinery room forward of the flooded engine room. I descended to below the ship’s waterline, and could see from the emergency lights that had been run down into the space that small holes from various places along the bulkhead between the two spaces had been stuffed with rags and wedges to keep water from leaking in, but fuel and water were relentlessly filling the space. Back up in the starboard side passageway, I walked by the damaged Repair 5 locker. At some point in the evening, the Repair Locker Officer, Ensign Jason Grabelle, and members of the locker’s repair team had pried open the door to Repair 5. Damage to the storage lockers and the crushed and bowed-in walls of the space had made it unusable. Rather than abandoning everything inside, however, the crew had completely emptied it of every bit of damage control equipment. Initially refilling the stocks used by Repairs 2 and 3 in saving the ship, the rest of the parts, pieces, and equipment had been neatly staged on the flight deck near what had been the second triage area.

  Rounding the corner, the odd-shaped splatters of a blood-stained deck in front of me reminded me again of our situation as I found myself staring into the Command Master Chief’s office along the mess line. The walls had been pushed toward the starboard side, and the whole space appeared to be cocked at a ten-degree angle. The desk was shoved against the filing cabinet. Amazingly, a picture of Master Chief Parlier’s daughter was still taped to the distorted and crushed wall adjoining the destroyed galley, covered in a film of fuel oil, explosive residue, and dust, but it seemed clear that if he had been in his office, he would have been killed. Without his skills as a medical corpsman, many injured sailors probably would not have been saved.

  I found myself once again standing at the edge of the blast hole. Faint light flickered off the harbor waters, the smell of fuel still hanging thickly in the dank air. Exiting through the small vestibule and across the mess line, I peered into the darkness of the blocked port passageway and around the corner at the end of the mess line. As my flashlight slowly traced the overhead, where a piece of the deck had blown up and toward the back of the ship, my heart froze. Just down the passageway from where I was standing, crushed in the mangled metal, the remains of a sailor stuck out from the bent wreckage of the ship—part of a head, a broken arm, some of a leg, and, barely visible in a fold of metal, a cold, lifeless hand.

  Farther back down the passageway there was even worse. The explosion had picked up a sailor whole and violently propelled his body off the deck. His head and upper body were pinned into the overhead, and his body hung there against the aft wall. I could almost recognize who it was, but dared not guess for fear of wrongly alarming an anxious family back home.

  I was staggered by the sight. Why my ship? Why me? What had I done wrong? Why had God allowed this to happen to us? What about my crew? How are we going to get through this? What would happen next?

  Anxiety and a feeling of being overwhelmed washed over me as I made my way back to the starboard passageway and continued toward the central control station. Walking into it at 0515, I smelled fresh brewed coffee, which was welcome to me, but as I looked at the coffee pot, I spotted possible trouble—the pot was hard-piped into the ship’s fresh-water system, and there were no empty bottles of water around it. This could only mean the engineers had disobeyed one of our key health concerns—they were drinking unsanitized water directly from the pier. The crew saw what I was thinking and the room grew still. They looked at me sheepishly, until someone finally spoke up. “Captain, we’re already on our third or fourth pot of the night . . . well, sir, no one has been doing the Yemeni two-step, so the coffee must be OK.”

  Finally, I forced a weak smile and looked around the room. “Well, all right. Where’s a cup for me?” Everyone laughed.

  Somehow, we would get through this.

  7

  The Bucket Brigade

  LEAVING THE CENTRAL CONTROL STATION before dawn at about 0530 Friday, the day after the attack, I walked down the starboard passageway and out onto the flight deck. Everywhere I looked, I saw exhausted and dirty sailors sprawled on the deck of the ship. Some were out cold. Others had not been able to get to sleep, or had woken up and quietly spoke with friends and shipmates. Several looked up as I walked toward Chris and the Command Master Chief at the stern of the ship. Squatting down, I spoke quietly to not alarm either of them, “Hey, XO, good morning.” As he woke up, Chris sat up quickly and objected that I hadn’t awakened him earlier. Somberly, I said, “Well, I wanted you to get some sleep. One of us needs to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to face the day.”

  I told Chris and the master chief that during the night the engineers had restored the freshwater and plumbing in the aft part of the ship and that they should go get a shave and a shower, and then get the crew up at 0600 to give them the good news that they could do the same. That meant that I could keep the crew on board instead of having to berth them in local hotels. I viewed this as critical to our survival as a group. It was imperative that we all persevere through this ordeal together.

  Learning of the attack on Cole the day before through their respective military channels, three ships had arrived during the night off the coast of Aden within hours of one another: first was HMS Marlborough of the Royal Navy, commanded by Commander Anthony Rix, followed by USS Hawes and USS Donald Cook, with which Cole had been scheduled to rendezvous this day for turnover of Fifth Fleet duties. None of these ships had yet received diplomatic clearance to enter Yemen’s territorial waters. The Royal Navy chose to disregard this inconvenience and immediately had Marlborough proceed and offer whatever assistance we needed. South Yemen had at one time been a British colony, and they understood the culture well enough to anticipate that this action would command respect—as a show of determination, strength, and confidence in their ability to help and protect an ally. The U.S. Navy, on the other hand, took a much more rigid and bureaucratic approach to such things. Both Hawes and Donald Cook were obliged to wait until late morning for diplomatic approvals before crossing into territorial waters to offer assistance. Both commanding officers later told me they were frustrated by the bureaucratic red tape and were prepared to disobey instructions if we needed immediate help.

  I was heartened when Marlborough’s Executive Officer Lieutenant Commander Andrew Webb—emerging onto the refueling pi
er from a small zodiac-style (inflatable) boat flying the Royal Navy’s white ensign—walked up the brow, requested permission to come aboard, and asked if there was anything we needed. With some pride, I told him that while the offer was greatly appreciated, the only thing that might be in need of replacement was aqueous fire-fighting foam; otherwise, the ship was in relatively stable condition. After exchanging a few more details about the attack and its aftermath, Lieutenant Commander Webb offered the immediate aid of Marlborough at any point we needed it, and left the pier.

  By about 0825, a Yemeni boat carried Ambassador Barbara Bodine, Captain Hanna, and Lieutenant Colonel Newman across the harbor towards the Cole. Their boat approached the ship, slowing as it neared a point about 100 feet from the port side as Captain Hanna pointed out the huge blast hole, and then pulled up to the refueling pier. Ambassador Bodine was the first to walk up the brow. Saluting, I greeted her aboard and then walked them up the starboard side and across the middle of the ship to stand on the warped deck directly above the center of the explosion. Debris littered the area and the snapped lifelines still lay on deck—not the usual protocol for a VIP visit, but these visitors needed to be aware of the vast amount of damage that had befallen us. I also wanted them to be proud of what the crew had accomplished in the time since the attack.

  We continued forward to the bow, where the ambassador could look back and broadly view the damage to the exterior, including the superstructure, electronic warfare system and radio antennas, the AN/SPY-1D phased-array radar, and the forward 20 mm CIWS cannon. Proceeding to the darkened interior, with the only visibility provided by a string of bulbs from the ship’s in-port decorative lights, I took the ambassador over to the port side of the ship, near the entrances to main engine room 1 and the chiefs’ mess, where the twisted deck bent upward into the overhead. I told her how the deck of the galley had been ripped into four sections and what each piece had done to material and people in the area. Ambassador Bodine, after hearing these gruesome details, became increasingly subdued, asking very few questions as we started the walk through the ship.

  We walked forward up the port side passageway and crossed in front of the repair locker, now restored and ready for action, before walking down the starboard side to the medical treatment area where we entered the mess decks. Nothing had been touched since the day before and we crunched our way across the broken glass and food to the port side passageway and the end of the mess line.

  Squeezing to make room, the ambassador looked at the deck bent upwards against the aft wall of the mess line. After a slight pause to give her time to take in the devastation around her, I pointed out the sailors still crushed and trapped in the wreckage. Her face slightly contorted in pain and we gingerly withdrew back to the mess decks.

  As the tour concluded, we stood in the area between the stacks, near the blast center. Ambassador Bodine asked, “Gentlemen, may I have a moment alone with the captain?”

  Unknown to anyone else on board, Barbara Bodine and I had been acquaintances for years. Introduced by mutual friends, Rick and Ann Dorman, at Thanksgiving dinner about five years earlier, Barbara and I had maintained contact, seeing each other at various parties and dinners. In 1997, I had enjoyed a Christmas dinner she cooked at her home, a few days after she took the oath of office as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the Republic of Yemen. Prior to this post she had clocked years of experience in the Arabian Peninsula, among them as Deputy Chief of Mission in Kuwait when Iraq invaded in 1990.

  “Kirk,” she asked me when the others had moved out of earshot, “how are you doing?”

  “Barbara, I’m fine,” I answered, choking up, “but you cannot ask me that question again. Please, I need to focus on my ship and crew.”

  I let the morning air dry my eyes before motioning to Captain Hanna. As a group, we walked back to the brow, where I bade them good-bye and saluted the ambassador as she left the ship.

  I was not the only one struggling to maintain control of my emotions. Members of the crew were showing signs of strain. Whispers had already started about bodies being visible in the wreckage of the galley and mess line, which had been put generally off-limits. But in reality, there was no practical way to stop the crew from walking through that area. During morning quarters with the crew before the ambassador’s visit, I addressed the issue and told everyone about their shipmates’ remains trapped in the wreckage, saying that they would be extricated with dignity and respect as soon as that became possible. There were some in the crew who did not shave or shower for several days—I think because they were reluctant to go back inside and wanted nothing to do with being in there under the circumstances.

  By early afternoon, USS Hawes and USS Donald Cook had arrived off the mouth of the harbor, and each provided us with additional assistance in the form of extra damage control experts. Shortly afterward, Fifth Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Moore, with Captain Hanna in tow, came out to the ship in a Yemeni harbor boat. Our security teams tracked them closely, in spite of the passengers’ rank—for anyone not in an identifiable Navy craft, the crew was not exactly in a trusting mood. As earlier with the ambassador, Hanna had the boat slow and circle off the port side to check out the massive blast hole and the topside damage to the ship.

  The admiral crossed the refueling pier, walked up the brow, and was welcomed aboard with only a salute and a greeting from me—there was no way to pipe him aboard as “Fifth Fleet, arriving,” what with our 1MC and onboard communications system still down. We walked directly up the starboard side to the port amidships area directly above the blast, and then I followed the same path through the devastation as I had with every other visitor, showing the damage and explaining what we were doing to keep the ship afloat. Admiral Moore was especially moved by the sight of the sailors crushed in the wreckage of the mess line.

  He and Captain Hanna told me that a Department of State Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST) that included an FBI criminal investigation team would arrive in Aden later in the day, and an FBI Hostage Rescue Team had been sent to Germany in case it was needed. A Marine Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team (FAST) platoon would join us to help provide security, and a Joint Task Force would be set up to coordinate the broad interagency government effort that would be necessary to investigate and take care of Cole and the crew. Admiral Moore pulled me aside for a few minutes as we were walking back to the brow, and asked for my honest assessment of how the crew was doing and what we really needed for support and morale. I reiterated my strong feeling that keeping the crew together and on board their ship was the best thing for them.

  Unknown to me at the time, Admiral Moore was experiencing a startling absence of clear direction from Washington. A ship of the U.S. Navy had been attacked. This was clearly an act of war. But what was the response to be? It was the day after the bombing, and there was no indication of any next steps, yet.

  As commander of the Cole, my perspective was much more focused. My crew’s chain of command had been severely disrupted. For that reason, I planned to run quarters for the next few days. Each day I would present a basic synopsis for the crew: here’s the vision for the day; here is what we are going to do and how we are going to do it; here is what has happened overnight to support us; and here is what we have accomplished to date in restoration efforts. It would be important to keep the crew updated on our progress, so they had some measure of our accomplishments.

  Even so, I knew that the process of how we were going to survive this ordeal still had many unanswered questions. What systems did we still need to restore to maintain our ability to stay on the ship as a cohesive crew? How were we going to recover our shipmates from the wreckage? Even though the Fifth Fleet staff’s initial cadre had arrived in Aden and provided us with meals, what was going to be the long-term plan for food? How was I going to get the ship out of port, should it appear that we were going to be under threat of another attack? How was I going to be able to defend the ship? Were the terrorists going to attempt anoth
er attack and board the ship using small boats? Every one of these issues could drive our fate. I had hours not only to contemplate where we were right then, but also what the future might bring.

  Once again on our own for several hours, we continued to make ourselves busy and keep restoring systems on the ship. The engineers continued to assess the damaged and flooded spaces to determine what equipment could be repaired, which spaces might be able to be emptied of floodwaters. A critical requirement to keep the ship afloat was to thoroughly evaluate the areas surrounding the damaged and flooded areas and slow, if not stop, the steady leak of waters into adjoining critical compartments. These leaks were now down to a few steady but manageable streams of water with fuel mixed in.

  As part of the habits everyone was establishing for themselves and the ship following the bombing, I had developed my own routine—and my own headquarters. In an area near the aft vertical guided-missile launchers, and strapped to the ship’s superstructure, we had two large eight-by-four foot rubber fenders we had purchased to keep between the ship and the pier during the deployment. Now, these fenders became my office. Thanks to the overhanging ledge just above them, they were in the shade most of the day and offered a protected area out of the sun. From here, I was right near the quarterdeck where I could observe the watch and know who was coming on and off the ship, and most importantly, I could be available for the crew.

  As evening came, though I considered getting some sleep, I was still operating on adrenaline and the drive to protect the ship and crew. A little after sunset, Chris approached me and said he had just taken a call from the White House on our borrowed cell phone, telling him that I should expect to hear from the President in about twenty minutes. Chris found the situation almost surreal, but also understood that it was a serious moment. “Well, give me the phone and let’s go have a seat on the fantail and wait for the President to call,” I said.