by Larry Bond
Weyer looked at Hardy, who nodded curtly. Turning to Richards, he said, “Permission granted.”
Down in the torpedo room, Moran was sweating. It had taken longer than he had expected to get the ROV into the tube. He was sure that the CO was pissed as hell, and he was sure he’d hear about it later. But at least his team had managed to load the vehicle without breaking anything. Now they could relax a little bit and wait for Marcie to finish her test run before they had to bust their butts again. He had just settled down with a cup of coffee when TM2 Greer called him. “Hey, Curt, come over here and look at this, will you?” Sighing, Moran put his cup in one of the holders and walked over to the starboard tube nest.
“What’s the problem, Joe?”
“Take a look at the fiber-optic cable penetration in the breech door. I think the leak is getting worse.”
Moran took the flashlight and examined the penetration fitting. Sure enough, the water was seeping out in a small but steady stream. It definitely was worse than during the first trials. “Did the Senior Chief say anything about this during the first test run?”
“I didn’t talk to Foster at all, but Boyd told me that they thought it had gotten better. Do you think we should inform control?” Greer asked, clearly concerned.
“Are you kidding?” replied Moran forcefully. “The CO is already pissed at us for taking so long to the load the damn ROV and you know how he takes false alarms. I’ll call the Senior Chief and he can come and take a look at it.”
Moran walked over to the Dialex, picked up the receiver, and dialed the chiefs’ quarters. “Hey Master Chief, it’s Moran. Is Senior Chief Foster there? Could I speak with him, please?” As he waited for Foster to come to the phone, Moran walked around in small, agitated circles.
“Hey, Senior Chief, Moran here. Did you guys notice if that leak from the cable penetration was worse during your run? What? No, no, it’s a steady stream now. No, it’s definitely beyond a slow drip. Could you come down here and take a look? Yeah, okay, thanks.”
It wasn’t even a minute before Foster burst into the torpedo room. “All right, Moran, let’s look at the stupid fitting.” It took only a casual inspection for Foster to see that the leak was a lot worse. Foster carefully grasped the fiber-optic cable between his fingers and gently moved it around to see if he could determine exactly which part of the fitting was leaking. As he moved the cable, more water spurted out — and with greater force.
“Hey! Petty Officer Moran, what are you guys doing over there?” shouted Davis. “I’m getting a lot of interference, and…” Emily stopped in midsentence as the cable continuity alarm flashed on her screen. She was no longer connected to the ROV outside. “I’ve lost Duey!” she shouted.
Over by tube three, Foster and Moran heard a sharp snapping noise. A split-second later, a high-velocity spray of water shot out from the fitting. The spray hit the centerline storage rack and ricocheted toward the weapons launching console. Part of the deflected water hit Moran in the chest with enough force to knock him into the starboard tube nest. He fell to the deck, momentarily stunned. A shocked Foster jumped back and hit the starboard storage rack.
Greer, Lee, and Emily all stared at the geyser of water pouring into the torpedo room. At a depth of two hundred feet, the pressure blasted seawater through the pinky-finger-sized hole like a fire hose on steroids. The roar was deafening.
Dazed, Foster stood up and grabbed for the Collision Alarm. The screech of the alarm reverberated throughout the boat. Shaking his head, he yelled over to Greer. “Greer, close the muzzle door!”
Hesitant at first, Greer crawled over to the weapons launching console and pushed the button to close the muzzle door on tube three. Nothing happened. He tried again and again, still nothing. The console wasn’t working. Shivering as the ice-cold seawater sprayed all over him, he turned toward Foster and shouted, “It doesn’t work!”
“Close it manually,” Foster screamed as he made a repetitive lever-like motion with his arm. Nodding, Greer looked in the overhead for the tube three muzzle door lever. With all that sea spray, it was hard to see anything. Still, after a few more seconds he found the lever and pulled it into the closed position. As Greer lowered his arm and looked back toward Foster, there was a bright flash.
Up in control, Jerry heard a dull roar coming from below, like the sound of high-pressure air being released. Without even asking for permission to leave, he got up and started heading for the torpedo room. When the Collision Alarm sounded, he bolted down the ladder. The XO was right behind him. As they were halfway down the second ladder to the lower level, the IMC blared: FIRE IN THE TORPEDO ROOM!
Down in the twenty-one-man bunkroom, Jerry grabbed two EABs and tossed one to the XO. As they donned their masks, the crewmen from the berthing area were filing out and putting on their masks as well. Bair ordered them to start forming a fire-fighting team.
Plugging in his mask, Jerry turned to Bair, who motioned for him to go in. Jerry opened the door. It looked more like a steel foundry than a torpedo room. Flames and sparks were leaping around from the forward part of the room. Silhouetted by the fire, he saw Foster coming toward him, carrying an injured man. It flashed into his mind that Emily Davis had only a few minutes of damage control practice.
After taking a deep breath, Jerry unplugged his EAB, and moved as quickly as he could to the ROV control area. Bair helped Foster with the injured crewman. Smoke was rapidly filling the room, making it hard for Jerry to see where he was going. Feeling his way along the bulkhead, he found Emily huddled behind the control console. She was still tightening the straps on her EAB mask when he reached her. Grabbing her head with both of his hands, he put their two facemasks together. She looked terrified, but there was no time for comforting words. She needed to get out of here — now! Jerry yelled as loud as he could through his mask, “EMILY, YOU NEED TO LEAVE. FOLLOW THE BULKHEAD TO THE DOOR!” Without waiting for her reply, Jerry jerked her to her feet and placed her right hand on the bulkhead. He then grabbed her left hand and put it on her EAB connection. “ON THREE, YOU PULL THE PLUG AND GO! ONE!. TWO!. THREE!” Even though her hands were shaking badly, she managed to unplug her connection and started walking along the bulkhead.
More sparks popped out from the flames, but this time the lights blinked as well. An electrical fire! Jerry moved as fast as he could over to the power distribution panel. He swung the panel door open and started opening the breakers inside. Since he didn’t know exactly what was on fire, he opened all of them in the hope that it would cut out the equipment that was burning. As he stood there, he felt the boat developing an up angle; they were coming shallow. Soon they would be at a depth where they could emergency-ventilate the torpedo room and get rid of the smoke.
Jerry considered grabbing a fire extinguisher and heading toward the fire. But he realized that it was more important for him to report to the XO that he thought they had an electrical fire on their hands, and that he had already opened the breakers. Once again, Jerry took a couple of deep breaths, unplugged his EAB, and started making his way back toward the berthing area. When he reached the ROV control consoles, he stopped to plug into the emergency air supply nearby. As he was feeling around for the EAB manifold, he bumped into somebody — it was Senior Chief Foster. Once Foster realized who it was, he tried to go around Jerry but Jerry held him back. “OUT OF MY WAY! I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR YOU,” snarled Foster. “WE HAVE AN ELECTRICAL FIRE. I HAVE TO. ”
“I ALREADY TOOK CARE OF THE BREAKERS, SENIOR CHIEF,” shouted Jerry angrily as Foster pushed against him.
“WHAT?” Foster seemed shocked by Jerry’s report.
“I SAID, I ALREADY OPENED ALL THE BREAKERS ON THE P-PANEL. I’M GOING TO INFORM THE XO.” Feeling a tad smug, Jerry unplugged himself and continued his search for Bair. Foster just stood there, dumbfounded.
He found the XO right where he expected him to be, leading the fire-fighting team. They were all crouched down, advancing slowly toward the forward part of the torpedo
room, under the cover of a low-velocity water fog to keep the heat down. Jerry crawled up to Bair’s side and plugged himself into his EAB fitting. Carefully and deliberately, Jerry reported his observations and corrective actions to his superior. The XO listened, and after Jerry had finished, gave him the thumbs-up sign. Bair then raised the NIFTI back up to his faceplate and motioned for the fire-fighting team to resume their advance and began spraying the burning console with high-velocity fog. Jerry detached himself and backed off. He would only be in the way now. With the power supply to the weapons launching console isolated, the fire was quickly extinguished.
The uncontrolled leak that caused the fire had also died down. Once the muzzle door had been shut, the torpedo tube depressurized rapidly and the dangerous pressure-driven spray quickly diminished to an inoffensive trickle. The danger to the boat was over.
13. RECOVERY
Memphis bobbed around at periscope depth for forty-five minutes while the smoke was cleared from the forward compartment. The atmospheric monitoring equipment indicated that the carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide levels in the boat were once again within safe levels. But Hardy made everyone wait another ten minutes while he had the atmosphere tested manually. Finally, the IMC announced to the crew that they could take off their EABs.
Jerry removed his mask and was immediately greeted by the stench of burnt electrical insulation. The smell was so pungent that he briefly considered putting his mask back on. Throwing his EAB onto the centerline storage rack, he walked over to the starboard tube nest. Boyd and Greer had finished draining tube three, and were examining the inside of the breech door as Jerry approached.
“Any ideas as to what happened?” he asked.
“Not a clue, sir,” answered Boyd frankly. “Oh, it’s obvious that the gasket failed catastrophically, but I can’t tell you how or why.”
“Can we still use the tube?”
“Sure. We can screw in the metal plug and seal the penetration, but we won’t be able to support ROV ops.”
“I see,” Jerry said. It was not going to be a pleasant experience when he’d have to tell Patterson that the tube might no longer be capable of supporting the mission. She might blow a gasket herself. “Well, go ahead and put in the plug. I want this door watertight. And find me some of that gasket, we need to figure out what happened.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Boyd.
Jerry surveyed his damaged room. In the poor light, he couldn’t tell if what he saw was burned equipment and structure or if it was just soot from the fire. Turning his flashlight to the weapons launching console, he was surprised to see that it was largely intact. He half-expected it to be a charred ruin. Jerry had just started walking over to make a closer inspection when the lights came back on. Over at the power distribution panel, he saw Foster and FT3 Larsen, the latter on the sound-powered phones. He was probably talking to maneuvering, Jerry thought, making sure that it was safe to close the breaker for the lighting circuit. With better illumination, the real state of the torpedo room became readily apparent.
The forward part of the room was pretty bad off. The damage to the launching console was worse than he had first thought, and the area between the tubes was badly burnt as well. The rest of the room, however, just looked dirty from all the smoke. Foster left the P-panel and marched down to the console, his feet sloshing in half an inch of cold seawater still on the deck. Jerry watched as the senior chief wiped off part of the control section and surveyed the damage. He looked tired and dismayed.
Slowly, Jerry walked up behind Foster and asked, “How bad?”
“Real bad,” replied Foster as he shook his head ruefully.
“Can it be repaired at sea?”
“Uhh, I don’t know… sir.” Foster closed an access panel and then turned to face Jerry. “And I won’t know for sure until we have stripped this console to parade rest. But I can say this much: I wouldn’t hold out much hope.”
Jerry nodded his acknowledgment and the two of them just stood there, an awkward silence between them. It was a little too much for Jerry.
“How’s Moran?”
“He was badly bruised when he got slammed into the tubes by that jet of water, but Doc says he’ll live,” said Foster wearily.
“You did well getting him out as fast as you did, Senior. Thank you.”
Foster was startled by the sincerity of Jerry’s compliment. And for the second time that day, he was at a loss for words.
Jerry was about to suggest that Foster go and get some dry clothes on, when Emily walked into the torpedo room. He was glad to see that she had not been hurt. He regretted being so rough on her during the fire, but he had to do it. He had to get her to safety. As Emily got closer, he could tell that she was awestruck by all the damage. But what Jerry initially took as an aftereffect of shock turned out instead to be unbridled rage.
“What did you idiots do?” demanded Emily. Her whole body shook as she spoke.
Completely taken aback by her accusation and vehemence, Jerry was barely able to muster a weak, “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Mitchell! Why did those stupid Neanderthals of yours play around with the cable fitting! If they had just left things alone, this wouldn’t have happened and my baby wouldn’t be stranded out in the middle of the Norwegian Sea!”
Both Foster and Jerry were utterly amazed that the ranting woman in front of them was the mousy, quiet Dr. Davis. In different circumstances, the extremes of Emily’s behavior would have been humorous. But right now, any sign of joviality would be ill advised. With one of her precious ROVs stuck outside, she had the temperament of a mother grizzly bear whose cub was threatened.
“Emily, I can assure you that my guys did not cause this casualty. ”
“Don’t give me that patronizing bullshit, you son of a bitch! Your men cut him loose!”
Jerry felt his jaw tighten and he found himself becoming angry as well. He was cold, wet, and coming down from an adrenaline high. He really wasn’t in the mood to deal with someone who couldn’t separate the cause of the accident from proper corrective actions. And while Jerry liked Emily Davis a lot, he wasn’t about to put up with her irrational tirade.
“Now, wait one damn minute, Dr. Davis! My men did not cause that fitting to fail. They responded properly to the casualty that followed. And I stand one hundred percent behind their actions, even though it meant cutting the drogue umbilical cable and stranding the ROV. In the grand scheme of things, Doctor, the lives of my men are considerably more important than your vehicle!”
It was Emily’s turn to be surprised. She simply stood there, her mouth hanging open, as Jerry’s stern message sunk in. Slowly, she nodded her head, the anger on her face replaced by anguish. “But what about Duey?”
Before Jerry could answer, another angry voice repeated the question. “Yes, Lieutenant, what about the ROV? Can it be recovered?”
Jerry looked up and saw Patterson and Hardy approaching them. Inwardly he groaned. It would be nearly impossible now to keep the situation under control with the two hottest heads on the boat joining the discussion. Jerry knew that they would both be upset, but for vastly different reasons. Hardy didn’t disappoint him as he butted in. “The question of the ROV’s recovery will have to wait, Dr. Patterson. What I need to know, Mr. Mitchell, is the name of the individual who is responsible for this debacle — and nearly cost me my boat!”
Jerry heard Foster swallow hard behind him. Jerry knew it would be so easy to blame him for this whole incident. According to Greer and the others, Foster was the senior member present when the casualty occurred. And Davis would almost certainly back his claim. It was the Memphis way of doing business after all, pass the blame onto someone else. But that was not how Jerry was brought up or trained by his instructors at the Academy and by Commander Casey. When he signed on to Memphis and assumed the duties as the Torpedo Division Officer, he became responsible for whatever happened in this room.
“I’m waiting, mister!” snarled Hardy
.
“Yes, sir,” replied Jerry, stalling as he built up his courage. “Based on my knowledge of the events that led up to the casualty, sir, I really can’t give you the name of a particular individual at this time.”
“That is totally unacceptable, Lieutenant!” screamed Hardy, his face and neck bulging with anger.
“I’m sorry, Captain, but there is no way I can name an individual with any degree of confidence,” replied Jerry firmly, but with respect. “We had a fitting, not installed by the ship’s crew, fail at two hundred feet when it is rated for considerably deeper depths. We had a control console that is supposed to be splash-proof, short out and burst into flames. Without investigating how and why these incidents occurred, I can’t tell you if one of my men is responsible or if the fault lies with SUBASE personnel or even Draper Labs.”
Hardy, completely unconvinced by Jerry’s argument, seethed and through clenched teeth said, “One last time, Lieutenant Mitchell, I’m ordering you to tell me who is responsible for this disaster!”
“Very well, Captain. If you want a name, then use mine. Because I’m responsible for what goes on in my torpedo room.”
An eerie silence descended on the group as all of them were surprised by Jerry’s forceful response to Hardy’s demand.
“Umm, Captain,” interrupted Patterson. “While this incident is of some importance to you, we do not have time to play your petty blame game when there are larger issues to consider. Can the ROV be recovered and can we continue on with our mission?”
Jerry recognized the snide “mission commander” tone in Patterson’s voice and knew that Hardy was in a poor position to negotiate since she had kept her questions strictly within the boundaries he had set for her. Recognizing the right answer when told, Hardy motioned for Jerry to address her questions.