The navy had a requirement to periodically conduct a Quality Assurance Service Test (QAST) of the war reserve inventory of MK17 ASROC depth charges. Once an ASROC was selected from the war inventory in a bunker somewhere, the warhead was replaced with an instrument package to track the trajectory and other vital data needed for determining readiness of the ASROC war reserve inventory. The navy then selected a combatant ship and a missile range location where the test firing would occur. During my tenure at Quick Find, that generally occurred at San Clemente or San Nicholas Island in California; Little Creek or Norfolk, Virginia; or Mayport, Florida. Once the ship, site, and date were selected, the Quick Find team packed up all the necessary equipment and sea lion transport and housing gear and either transported by aircraft or transited by ship to the QAST test firing water area.
Part of the Quick Find duty was to set up the ASROC target radar reflector/buoy system in the selected water area prior to the ship firing the ASROC.
The navy periodically tests the war reserve inventory of MK17 ASROC depth charges from the war inventory.
Then, all ships and boat traffic were cleared from the firing area and confirmed by picket boats. That is why the missile firings were conducted in clearly defined military maritime areas. All clear, the selected ship would fire the ASROC, and typically it could be tracked by the naked eye, showing the launching plume to the splashdown in the water, resulting in a large but green splash and cloud of mist where the ASROC entered the water. The green came from the dye pack on the missile in order to aid Quick Find in locating the initial splashdown area. Our support ship or boat was typically about two miles away from the projected splashdown area, so our support ship/boat response time was delayed in reaching the area, and the green dye enabled us to follow the current or drift to the splashdown.
The goal was to reach the projected splashdown site and actually be within five hundred yards to a half mile from the real location. Once on site, we would launch our sixteen-foot Z-bird inflatable boat with a driver and pinger-receiver man. Each ASROC had a 9kz and 37kz pinger on the tail cone. The pinger man would listen for the 37 kHz signal with a receiver and headset to locate the ASROC and attempt to station the Z-bird directly over the top of the ASROC and drop a thirty-five-pound Danforth anchor and dual orange buoys to mark the location. There was at least one occasion when the ASROC 37 kHz had been detected and located from over a mile away by the pinger man, but that was out of the ordinary.
Tom McHugh drives the Z-bird and John Busch places the ASROC target radar reflector in the water prior to the navy ship firing the missile.
The ASROC missile launches from the navy ship in the missile range.
The missile carried a green dye pack that exploded on impact with the water to aid in finding the initial splashdown area.
Trainer Dan Peterson, wearing headphones, puts the pinger receiver over the side of the boat into the water to locate the 37 kHz pinger on the ASROC missile below.
Once the ASROC location is marked by the dual buoys, the Quick Find team of a sea lion, trainer, line handler, and boat driver load the Z-bird. They also bring a reel of five hundred feet of 3/8-inch Sampson braid line, a D-8 grabber device with a nose cone, and of course, a bucket of smelt for the sea lion reward.
The system for marking the ASROC missile below consisted of two orange buoys on the surface connected to the line. The first buoy marked the ASROC location below, and the second orange buoy trailed free, flowing with the current and indicating to the Z-bird driver which way the current was flowing. The Z-bird driver used this current indicator to drive the Z-bird up current about three to five boat lengths, where the boat driver would estimate to be located directly overhead of the target below or slightly up current of the target. This boat location gave the sea lion the best chance of locating the ASROC either visually or by listening for the 9 kHz pinger, which is in the sea lion’s hearing range.
Once located, the site was marked by two orange buoys on the surface. Observations of the buoys’ position and current flow allowed the boat driver to get in the best position for retrieval.
If the trainer was satisfied with the boat location, he would give the sea lion the hand signal to enter the water. The animal was typically raring to go by now and quickly entered the water and returned to the trainer, who would place the D8 or D9 grabber device with a nose cup over the nose and mouth of the animal. The sea lion then would quickly dive underwater and swim anywhere from 150 to 350 feet deep into the water depending on the depth of the ASROC. The missile would typically land almost in a vertical position, with its nose buried in the sand and the tail cone sticking straight up or at a slight angle.
The only indicator the trainer had of the sea lion’s progress at this point was the speed at which the Sampson cord reel unwound as the sea lion kept swimming downward. All the sea lions have been trained to go at least five hundred feet deep and easily accomplish that depth. The water does get very cold and dark at that depth, and the sea lion may be relying totally on listening to the 9 kHz pinger to initially find the ASROC until it gets close enough to actually see it. Then, with the sea lion’s very good sight in low light, the animal would place the D8 or D9 grabber device on the black section of the tail cone just under the rocket fins. The sea lion differentiates the fins and the cone shape due to the contrasting white and black stripes on the fin area. The sea lion would then place the grabber just under the rocket fins. Usually the sea lion would double-check the placement and then head back up to the surface.
The sea lion was fitted with a grabber device over its nose and mouth. Once the sea lion located the missile, it would place the grabber device on the tail cone.
As the sea lion placed the grabber, the small button on the grabber pushed in and released the spring-loaded circular arms that wrapped around the tail cone and locked in place. With the arms locked, the stainless steel smalldiameter cable, which was attached to the Sampson cord, then tightened around the tail cone under the fins as the line was pulled to the surface.
The sea lion would double-check the placement of the grabber and then head back to the surface.
Quick Find leading petty officer and trainer Tom McHugh communicates on the radio to the navy support craft, informing them the Z-bird rubber boat is returning home with the sea lion and crew. An ASROC is lifted out of the water in the background.
Trainer Mike Kelley, carrying a full bucket of fish, guides his sea lion back onto the navy support craft and to the portable pen following the successful ASROC recovery.
A Quick Find scuba diver, approximately ten feet deep, places a ⅜-inch Sampson cord lifting line onto the ASROC tail cone and removes the D9 grabber devices to prevent damage to the grabber during final ASROC recovery.
Chief Petty Officer Pat Gruber and Leading Petty Officer Tom McHugh maneuver the ASROC depth charge onto the deck of the navy landing craft utility (LCU), completing a successful ASROC recovery.
Here I am giving a five-gallon bucket of smelt to a sea lion following a successful QAST mission.
The sea lion did not waste any time swimming back up to the surface and usually jumped out of the water about a foot above the gunwale of the Z-bird and landed on the main tube next to the trainer. The line handler would take a strain on the line to determine if the grabber device was solidly connected to the ASROC. Then the trainer would reward the sea lion by hand-feeding it a few fish initially, but soon after he would let the sea lion dip his whole head into the bucket, wildly feeding on the five pounds of smelt. While the sea lion feeding frenzy continued, the Z-bird then drove toward the recovery ship, letting out the line as the ship and Z-bird closed distance.
The Z-bird driver would rendezvous with the ship and power the Z-bird nose into the ship, keeping it close without tying up lines. Once steady against the ship, the trainer and sea lion climbed over the bow of the Z-bird and onto the ship deck, walking directly to the portable pen where the sea lion would receive the rest of his fish reward. While that was goin
g on, the line handler handed up the reel of line to personnel on deck of the recovery ship, usually right next to the crane or davit. The line would then be placed through the crane block and tackle and run to the winch, which was secured to the deck. The winch operator then took two to three wraps around the winch drum and started winching in the line, lifting the ASROC off the bottom. Winching up the three to five hundred feet of line took a while, but the ASROC would be lifted just below the surface of the water, where the winch operator held it in place as a scuba diver jumped in the water with another Sampson line and removed the grabber device from the tail cone to avoid damage to the close tolerance of the grabber mechanism. All the weight of the ASROC would now be transferred and lifted by the additional line, recovered on the deck of the support ship, and placed back into the shipping container.
4
GORDY’S TASK: TRAINING AND READINESS
The entire ASROC recovery process was much more complex than first appearances indicated. The entire process needed to be broken down into incremental training steps for both the trainer and the sea lion. The trainer training cycle would be accomplished in a couple of months, but for the sea lion, it would take from six to nine months.
Chief Gordon Sybrant had a difficult task at hand. He had upcoming QAST recoveries soon to be tasked by the navy but he also had a project that just recently moved locations and a group of four out of six trainers who were new and had to be trained in a short period of time without any formal training program or support and with limited equipment. That was the challenge for Gordy. He had two out of three sea lions QAST recovery ready, so all he had to do was use his two experienced trainers to get the other four up to speed while maintaining the training of the existing experienced sea lions.
We started going to sea about two to three miles off Point Loma, totaling a twenty-four- to twenty-eight-mile round-trip transit, plus the five to six hours of at-sea training time, every day five to six days a week come rain or shine. We had an old thirty-six-foot work barge with dual 115hp Evinrude outboard motors (OBM) to make the transit, and it seemed we were always fixing the motors and plowing through waves not only in San Diego harbor but also transiting in the five- to six-foot swells off the coast of Point Loma.
Chief Gordon Sybrant.
Chief Petty Officer Gordy Sybrant demonstrates how to drive the Z-bird and simultaneously listen on the pinger receiver for the mock-ASROC target 37 kHz pinger below, as John Busch and Tom McHugh observe.
On one occasion, we had only one operational starter for the two 115hp outboard motors, and we would start one motor, remove the starter, and put it on the other OBM and start it; if one OBM stopped, we would have to repeat the process. We even got towed out to sea one time because none of the OBMs were working. Nothing stopped at-sea training, not equipment casualties or sea states. Many times, boats were returning to port due to small-craft warnings, and there we were limping out to sea to train.
The plan was for John Busch and Tom McHugh, our leading petty officer, to place each of us (Peterson, Hetzell, and me) in the various positions needed to train the animals every day. We had to learn how to drive the barge, drive the Z-bird, maneuver the Z-bird to the best position in line with the buoys to launch the sea lion over the target, operate the winch, serve as line handler, launch and recover the training target, handle the sea lions in and out of their barge cages, prepare the fish, and perform many other at-sea training duties. As the days and weeks passed, we each became proficient in these basic duties and eventually were able to switch and take one another’s duties when required. Once we showed proficiency in those duties, as well as duties required when ashore, we started cycling in and learning each of the phases to handle the sea lions.
The training barge heading out to Point Loma for training exercises.
Tom McHugh drives the Z-bird, lining up with buoys, while Rick Hetzell readies the training grabber device. John Busch gets sea lion Akahi ready for a training dive off Point Loma, California.
We started with the very basic animal behavior duties, such as signaling the sea lions to come out of the water, placing them in their individual pens with tubs, calling the animals to the dressing stand, harnessing the sea lions on the dressing stand, walking the animals from the floating pen to their cages on the barge, putting the animals in and out of their cages, and walking the animals to the Z-bird while alongside the barge at sea.
As we learned how to perform these basic animal behavior functions, Gordy would eventually start letting us handle the animals in the Z-bird and put them through their diving behaviors at sea. That, of course, was the most fun, working with the sea lions in the Z-bird inflatable rubber boat. The trainer would be in the front of the boat on the bow with the sea lion’s front flippers standing on the bow gunnel right next to the trainer, and many times the sea conditions would knock the sea lion into the trainer as the boat bounced up and down. This would sometimes make it difficult for the trainer to give the driver directions to align the boat with the target buoy lines.
The pictures on this page all illustrate the succession of naive animal training behaviors that must be accomplished before graduating to at-sea training. Here I am at left leading a sea lion into the portable pen on the navy LCU after training for an ASROC recovery.
I walk my sea lion Sinbad from the thirty-six-foot work barge deck onto the Z-bird inflatable boat for training out at sea off Point Loma, San Diego.
Trainer Dan Peterson demonstrates how to harness a sea lion on the dressing stand. He keeps the sea lion’s attention with one hand while connecting the harness belly strap as the animal waits patiently on the stand.
These were trained sea lions, so they were never tethered during at-sea training. The animals could take off any time they wanted, but I soon learned that the sea lions seemed to prefer the short amount of work they had to do everyday, diving to earn the five to ten pounds of smelt and mackerel we fed them.
Sinbad has graduated to at-sea training. Here I am about to have him dive and mark a mock-ASROC target on the bottom off of Port Loma, almost the same location where he was originally found as a hungry pup. The work barge can be seen in the background.
The rest of the time, they just sunned themselves or swam in their pool. I guess in a sea lion’s mind that would be preferable to hunting for their daily food, having to swim long distances in the ocean where predators might be waiting for them.
Hard work at sea was not all we did. There was plenty of work and training back at our compound at Pier 13 on the Naval Amphibious Base (NAB) in Coronado, California. Our compound was a classic example of the navy support to Project Quick Find in the early days.
Our building was an old and rustic World War II Quonset hut that was built when NAB was first established for training World War II navy personnel. The floating pen that we used to house the animals alongside Pier 13 was beginning to fall apart, with floating barrels sinking, and our thirty-six-foot work barge needed extensive maintenance to keep it going.
Some of the “most fun” (sarcasm) were trainer house-keeping duties to daily scrub down the pen decks and tubs with strong but diluted disinfectant cleaner and to periodically clean the nets hanging in the water that form a community pool for the sea lions. The disinfectant cleaner was strong so we diluted it significantly and wore rubber boots when in the pen. Daily cleaning was required because the sea lions were not too concerned about where they left their calling cards, whether in the water, on the deck, or on and in their tubs. Their excrement was greasy and pungent. Just ask our wives, who would make us take our sea lion training clothes off outside before we could come into the house.
Sea lions Akahi and Snitch lean against the portable pen net and rest in the sun after a full day of training onboard a navy LCU.
Dan Peterson thaws out the day’s fish ration in a stainless-steel tub near the edge of the Quick Find facility quay wall, located at Pier 13 on the Naval Amphibious Base in Coronado, California. The Quick Find building, an anci
ent World War II quonset hut, can be seen in the background, and the original portable pen on a trailer is in the foreground next to the quay wall.
One time when cleaning the decks during a Sunday duty watch, I was in a hurry and did two things that weren’t too smart. First, I did not dilute the disinfectant and poured it directly on the deck straight from the bottle. Second, I cleaned the pens while barefoot because I had forgotten my rubber boots. I did thoroughly rinse the deck down afterward of the disinfectant residue so it would not affect the animals.
That night, I learned the error of my ways. By the time it was bedtime, I had noticed the entire top of both of my feet were covered in what looked like a hive of tiny blister bubbles. There were blister bubbles on top of bubbles, all of which were filled to their individual capacity with fluid. Within each individual bubble, there was a corresponding pinpointed intense itch. I used all of my Navy SEAL willpower to not scratch or pop the blisters. I knew that was bad. About three o’clock in the morning, I jumped out of bed, went to the bathtub, filled it a quarter full with water, and then poured a gallon of bleach into the tub and mixed it. Then I grabbed a new and clean scouring pad and scraped off the hive of blisters on the top of my feet. Blister fluid oozed everywhere, and the pain made my eyes squint tightly closed. Then I enacted my most brilliant idea of putting my raw-skin feet into the tub of bleach water. To say the pain was intense would be an understatement. That said, the intense pain was a wonderful, wonderful relief from the previous intense itching. I know that was a stupid thing to do, especially with the potential for infection. The burning pain persisted as I rinsed my feet in the faucet, running fresh water. Though the pain persisted, I was now able to go to sleep finally for the first time that night. By morning, the blisters were dried up and gone, no more itch, and the top of my feet began to scab over and the pain subsided. Luckily, I did not get an infection, and I definitely learned my lesson to always wear my rubber boots when cleaning the pens.
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