by Larry Bond
Later that evening, after another tense meal, Patterson was in the head she and Emily shared with Hardy, getting ready to turn in. Exhausted from the day’s events, and yet another confrontation with Lowell Hardy, she just wanted to lie down and get some sleep. As she washed her face, she found herself muttering questions to the image in the mirror, “Why does he have to be so difficult? Why can’t he be more cooperative, like my staff back in D.C.? Why do I always have to fight him over everything?”
As she stewed over Hardy’s constant — and annoying — references to risks, consequences, and warfare, she lost track of where she was and slammed her elbow into the shower stall. Cursing the miniscule accommodations, Patterson’s frustration with Memphis and her commanding officer boiled to the surface and her irritation was enough to make her scream. In defiance to Hardy’s edicts on cleanliness, she threw the towel on the deck, turned off the light, and quietly opened the door to her stateroom. Emily was already asleep, so Patterson couldn’t turn on the light. Even though there was a tiny red light shining by the door, her eyes were not adapted to the dark, so she had to navigate her way to her rack by touch. Wearily, she tumbled into her bunk and was immediately grabbed by someone. She screamed as a large arm wrapped around her waist.
In control, Hardy and Bair were going over the revised fire-control team procedures when they heard Patterson scream. Surprised and afraid, both men raced to her stateroom, each one thinking that a member of the crew had gone off the deep end and was assaulting her. As Hardy burst into the stateroom, Patterson was over by the door to the head, bouncing on both feet and pointing vigorously at her bunk. “There is someone in my bed!” she screamed.
Bair reached over and turned on the light, ready to grab the idiot once he could see him. Davis, huddled up at the far end of the top bunk, her eyes wide with terror. In the bottom bunk was a man-sized, silver-colored suit hanging halfway out of the bunk with its empty arms outstretched toward Patterson. Immediately upon seeing her assailant, Patterson stopped bouncing and yelled indignantly. “What the hell is that thing?”
Hardy looked at Bair and both desperately tried to stifle their amusement; they failed. Within moments, both men were roaring with laughter. This only served to make Patterson angrier, which in turn caused the two to laugh even harder.
“Captain Hardy, this is outrageous!”
With tears welling in his eyes, Hardy could barely reply, “Yes, ma’am. You’re right. I’m sorry.” Bair nearly doubled over with his Captain’s response, and the two laughed until they were gasping for air.
“Are the two of you quite finished enjoying yourselves at my expense?” demanded Patterson, still quite peeved.
“Almost,” answered Hardy honestly. And after a little more chuckling he said, “Oh God! I needed that.”
Bair, finally managing to get a hold of himself, turned toward control, and shouted, “Auxiliaryman of the Watch, report to Dr. Patterson’s stateroom.”
Within a few seconds, a balding petty officer appeared at the door. “Auxiliaryman of the Watch, reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Petty Officer Johnson, please return the training steam suit to his quarters in the crew’s mess,” ordered Bair.
“Aye, aye, sir.” Johnson quickly walked into the stateroom, grabbed the steam suit by the arms, and began to pull it down the passageway. As he made his way to the ladder, they could hear him berating the steam suit. “Bad George! Who said you could leave your locker? Now the DCA will have to confine you to quarters for the rest of this run.”
With the steam suit thumping its way down the ladder, Bair and Hardy returned their attention to Patterson, who was now standing with her fists on her hips, her right foot tapping the deck. Her expression was more of annoyance than anger, but it was clear that she didn’t like being the butt of someone’s joke. “So, Captain, please don’t tell me that this is another example of the sick and twisted kind of humor the Navy condones?” While her expression was indignant, the effect was muted by her flowered pink pajamas.
Hardy paused for a moment and then replied, “Then I won’t tell you. Good night, ladies.”
Surprised by his response, Patterson watched as both Hardy and Bair left, the latter closing the stateroom door. Still annoyed, Patterson let out a growl as she turned out the lights and tumbled into her bunk. After she finally got comfortable, she thought about what had just happened and started to chuckle. Sighing, she turned over and muttered to herself, “Boys will be boys.”
15. COLD WELCOME
May 23, 2005
Barents Sea, Southwest of Novaya Zemlya
The next morning Jerry had the six to twelve watch in control. He and Tom Holtzmann arrived punctually at 0545, after their pre-watch tour through the boat, to begin the turnover with Lenny Berg. The relieving process always took some time, so officers were expected to show up at least fifteen minutes before their appointed watch.
Unlike the surface navy, which had four-hour watches followed by eight hours off, the submarine force used a more abusive six hours on, twelve hours off watch rotation. After six straight hours on watch, the brain turns to Tapioca pudding and all one wants is to be relieved on time. Usually, Jerry was paired with another officer who was the same rank or senior to him. But due to his aggressive qualification schedule, Jerry sometimes found himself standing watch with Ensign Holtzmann. Although Tom was junior to him in rank, he had more experience, and was formally qualified to be an OOD.
This meant he controlled the sub’s movements and actions during routine operations, and was responsible for three-quarters of a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money and the 137 souls aboard. If the boat went to General Quarters or some other special evolution, then the Captain would take over. Even if the Captain walked into the control room, Holtzmann would continue to run things, as long as Hardy was satisfied that he was doing a good job.
As the Junior Officer of the Deck, Jerry was learning on the job, backing up his book studies with on-watch time and training under a qualified officer. Eventually, he’d go before a board of Memphis’ officers. They’d question him within an inch of his sanity, and if he satisfied them, he’d be a qualified OOD.
There was no Junior OOD on the earlier midnight to six watch, so Jerry listened as Tom relieved a very sleepy Lenny Berg. Lenny showed Holtzmann their progress on the chart, reviewed the status of the ship’s reactor and engineering plant, and warned him about anything coming up in the next six hours. Some of the information was repetitive, as they had just talked to the offgoing Engineer Officer of the Watch, but a little redundancy is preferred over ignorance. After a few brief questions, Tom relieved Lenny and announced the turnover formally to the new watch section.
Fifteen minutes into what Jerry had expected to be a quiet transit watch, the loudspeaker announced. “Conn, sonar. New contact bearing three zero zero. Designate new contact sierra seven six.”
“Sonar, conn aye,” replied Holtzmann as he and Jerry clustered around the sonar console in control. The console had only a single display, but it could repeat whatever was on the eight displays the sonarmen were looking at.
“Look,” said Tom Holtzmann. “Can you see what it is?” He stepped to one side.
Jerry studied the computer screen, called a “waterfall display” because the older information “fell” toward the bottom of the screen as new data showed up at the top. The video display showed the sounds picked up by Memphis’ passive sonars, some of the most sensitive acoustic instruments ever built. The main passive array was a fifteen-foot sphere mounted at the bow with over twelve hundred transducers. It could also transmit powerful pulses into the water when the sonar went active. Memphis also had groups of passive hydrophones mounted along the forward part of her hull, and the most sensitive of all were the two lines of hydrophones towed behind her at the end of half-mile-long cables.
All the sounds they picked up were collected and displayed as bright green lines or wide spots on a ten-inch by ten-inch video screen. Engineers ha
d learned long ago that humans have a keener sense of sight than hearing and had modified sonar systems to take advantage of this natural fact. The louder the signal, the brighter the spot.
Holtzmann had selected a broadband display that was divided into three separate bands. The top one displayed only a couple of minutes’ worth of data, but it was updated much more rapidly than the other two that showed more information. Every few seconds, a new line of data was added at the top, pushing the older lines down.
A dim series of spots could be clearly seen on the topmost band, while it had just appeared on the middle one below. The displayed noise was fuzzy and wide, like the line left by a felt-tip pen on damp paper. A ship, especially a noisy one, would appear as a sharper, brighter set of lines because a ship has many different pieces of machinery, all making noise. This noise-maker was much more limited, weaker.
The next spot appeared on the left side of the display, now bearing three one zero degrees, to the northwest. That meant it lay to port and behind them. As Jerry watched, a new spot appeared, and seconds later, another. The spots didn’t change in brightness, but the line that they drew was angling sharply to the right. That was important. Whatever it was had a high bearing rate, which meant it was fast and close.
“What do you think it is, Mr. Mitchell?” Holtzmann asked.
The bearing rate was the key. The only thing that moved that fast was an aircraft and the only aircraft in this neck of the woods were Russian ASW planes. “A Bear or May patrol aircraft.” He tried to sound confident. “It’s close, too.”
As if on cue, the loudspeaker squawked back to life. “Conn, sonar. Sierra seven six now bears three one five degrees, drawing rapidly to the right. Contact is classified as a Bear Foxtrot.”
“Good guess, sir. Now tell me how they know it’s a Bear?” Holtzmann inquired as he reached up and changed the display to one that showed narrowband data.
Jerry smiled as he admitted his ignorance. “I know it has something to do with the type of engines, but other than that I haven’t a clue of what I’m looking at here.”
Narrowband sensors look for acoustic noise sources that are tightly confined within a very small frequency range. This kind of noise is produced by machinery that operates in a very regular and repetitive manner — like an aircraft’s engines. Both the Tupolev Bear and the Ilyushin May are driven by four large turboprop engines, but the Bear has huge contra-rotating props on each one. The extra set of blades showed up clearly on the display.
“See these four groups of doublets,” Tom said as he pointed to the close lines on the display. “That signal is the sound of his propellers. Each set of contra-rotating blades generates two frequencies that are really close to each other. Only a Tu-142 Bear Foxtrot has that kind of signature. And if we can hear the sound of his props, then he’s close. What should we do?”
Both planes were armed with ASW torpedoes, although there was no risk of attack this far away from Russian territorial waters. A greater danger was posed by the planes’ suite of ASW sensors. They carried radar, an ESM sensor that could detect other radars, and a short-range magnetic sensor called MAD that could sense the thousands of tons of steel in Memphis’ hull. They also carried dozens of sonobuoys that could be dropped in patterns designed to detect a sub — if the plane’s crew thought there was cause to use them.
Had this plane detected them? Were they responding to a report of a Yankee nuke approaching their waters? Or were they on their way home after a training mission? If Memphis was detected, or if the Russians even suspected there was a U.S. sub in the area, they would flood the area with ships and aircraft.
“Set up a track, and rig for ultra-quiet,” Jerry recommended.
“Should we change depth?” Holtzmann asked.
Jerry thought for a beat, then said honestly, “I don’t know.” Working it though, he reasoned, “If we go deep, we could get a little farther away from his MAD sensor, but if he drops sonobuoys, he’ll put them on both sides of the layer, and we won’t be able to hear him as clearly on the far side of the layer.”
The “layer,” or thermocline, was a sudden change in the temperature of the seawater that partially reflected sound waves. The depth of the layer varied from day to day, but sub sailors always made it their business to know where it was, and to use it to their advantage. Putting the layer between a sonar and the sub was like hiding in the shadows. It didn’t make you invisible, but it did make you harder to spot.
He paused, then said, “I recommend staying at this depth.”
Holtzmann nodded, “Do it.”
Jerry stepped back to the center of the control room. “Helm, all ahead one-third, make turns for five knots. Rig ship for ultra-quiet.” He turned to Holtzmann. “Should we notify the Captain?” As he asked his question, he heard his order echoed over the IMC: “Rig ship for ultra-quiet.”
“We’d be in big trouble if we didn’t,” replied the ensign. He picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Captain, Officer of the Deck. Sir, sonar’s detected a Bear Foxtrot off our port side, drawing rapidly to the right, evaluated as close. We’ve reducing speed and rigging for ultra-quiet.” He paused for a moment, then answered, “Yessir.”
Hardy stepped into the control room moments later. He stopped at the chart table for a moment, then studied the Bear’s track on the fire-control system. Silently, he headed toward the sonar displays as the watch team scrambled out of the way.
The waterfall display now showed about five minutes of track history, a single fuzzy line angling to the right, straight and steady. The Russian was continuing on his way
The Captain returned to the plot table, then the sonar display. He started to speak but caught himself before saying anything. Finally the petty officer manning the fire-control position said, “Contact is past closest point of approach and opening.”
He spoke softly — not a whisper, but not a normal speaking voice either. Jerry noticed that the control room suddenly seemed quieter. He realized that many of the familiar machinery noises were missing from the background. He also felt the boat slowing, a subtle difference in the deck’s vibration.
Hardy also spoke softly. He ordered, “Maintain this speed for thirty minutes after contact is lost, then resume normal speed and secure from ultra-quiet.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Holtzmann acknowledged.
Hardy left, but a minute later the two ladies entered, almost breathless. “What’s ‘ultra-quiet’ mean?” demanded Patterson. “What’s happening?” asked Davis. Concern filled both their faces. Their voices, also full of concern, were raised and sounded harsh in the quiet control room. A soft chorus of “Quiet, please” and “Speak softly” surrounded them. Even Patterson looked embarrassed as the two were hushed.
“It’s just a precaution,” assured Holtzmann. “Sonar picked up a Russian patrol plane and we went quiet to make sure it didn’t pick us up.”
“You mean it almost found us?” Concern grew to alarm on Patterson’s face. She started to speak softly, then forgot as emotion filled her voice.
“No, ma’am, there’s no sign of that. It passed close enough for us to hear it, but there’s no indication it changed course or did anything but continue flying from point A to point B. It’s headed away from us now, but just to be on the safe side, we’ll lay here in the weeds for a while, just in case he did drop a sonobuoy or three.”
“And they can hear us if we speak too loudly?” Emily’s question was a mixture of curiosity and surprise.
“Ma’am, at ultra-quiet, we reduce speed to a creep. This not only reduces the flow noise as the boat’s hull passes through the water, it also lets the engineers shut down some of the machinery. Unnecessary equipment, like some of the ventilation fans, are turned off, and some normal activities, like cooking in the galley, also stop. And all off-watch personnel are supposed to get into their racks and stay there.”
“Like us?” Emily asked.
Holtzmann nodded. “Like you two ladies.”
“And they can really hear us walking around and talking?” Patterson asked.
“It isn’t that the walking and talking are all that noisy.” Holtzmann explained. “It’s that everything else is that quiet. The whir of a fan, the sound of pans clattering in the galley, or a loud conversation may be the first thing they pick up.”
The XO had come in during Holtzmann’s explanation. He checked the fire-control track and the chart, then turned toward the ladies. “This is the part where we lie on our bellies in the mud while searchlights pass overhead. This is where we paint our faces green and merge with the underbrush. If they find us on the way in, it’s going to be harder — a lot harder — for us to get the job done.
“It’s not like it was back in the ‘70s and ‘80s, when we had a huge acoustic advantage,” he continued, “and we are heading straight for the Russian Navy’s front yard. Not only is their Northern Fleet headquarters here, but half a dozen sub and surface ship bases and as many air bases. In other words, the entire Northern Feet’s right over there.” He pointed to the southeast.
“Imagine how we’d feel if a Russian submarine went snooping into the Chesapeake Bay. How would our Navy react?”
“It’s going to be hard to type lying down,” Patterson declared resignedly, then left, with Davis following her. As she left, Bair said, “It shouldn’t be too long — this time.”
The signal from the Bear faded completely a few minutes later without changing course. They waited thirty minutes, the tension gone but prudence still in charge, then secured from ultra-quiet. They resumed normal transit speed, but Jerry sensed a different mood in control: not grimmer, but quieter and more focused. From here on they could expect to encounter Russian units at any time.
* * *
It was almost the end of his watch before anything else happened to break the quiet. Jerry looked up from his quals book as sonar announced, “Conn, sonar, new contact bearing one six zero degrees. Designated new contact sierra seven seven. Contact is a distant active warship pinging with a medium-frequency search sonar. Probably a patrol craft.”