Ocean’s Depths Demand Decisions Like No Others

“A submarine is a demanding command in peace or war, probably more so than any other ship. . . . In peacetime there are the hazards of the malevolent sea--ever-ready, with its sequence of inevitable consequences, to pounce mercilessly upon momentary disregard for its laws.”

--Edwin L. Beach, retired sub captain, from his novel “Run Silent, Run Deep”

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When it convenes a court of inquiry Monday into the deadly collision between a U.S. submarine and a Japanese fishing trawler, the Navy hopes to determine whether momentary disregard of official procedure caused the sub’s captain and crew to make such a tragic miscalculation.

Was the Greeneville’s commanding officer, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, given incorrect information from a sonar-tending sailor about the location of the trawler Ehime Maru? And, if so, how could that happen?

Should Waddle have taken more periscope sightings before ordering the emergency maneuver that sent the sub rocketing to the surface, smashing and sinking the trawler? Did Waddle and officer of the deck Lt. j.g. Michael J. Coen fail to extend the periscope high enough to compensate for choppy swells?

And lastly, what kind of commanding officer was the 41-year-old Texan with a 20-year unblemished record?

From the answers to these questions, three admirals will recommend whether Waddle, Coen and the sub’s executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer, should face criminal charges for the Feb. 9 incident that left nine Japanese missing at sea and prompted a flurry of diplomatic apologies from U.S. officials to an outraged Japanese public. On Saturday, the Coast Guard officially suspended its search for the nine people lost.

Playing out in the glare of international news coverage, the court of inquiry will be a humiliating experience for the Navy and its elite and highly decorated submarine service.

The court will hear testimony about the paradox of being the commanding officer of a U.S. submarine, one of the most prized and competitively sought jobs in the Navy.

No commanding officer of a surface ship works in such close proximity to the ship’s crew as the submarine’s commander, whose every mood, comment, decision or moment of indecision is known almost instantly to all aboard.

And yet no surface commander is as removed from the rest of the fleet and from upper echelons’ guidance as the submarine skipper.

“Unlike the surface commander, the sub captain is forced to work face to face with his entire crew,” said historian Norman Friedman, an expert on U.S. submarines. “But even with that closeness, the captain is alone. He can’t look out the window like a surface commander and see friendly ships everywhere or communicate quickly with the fleet commanders.”

To reconcile these opposites, the Navy begins grooming prospective submarine commanders from the moment they are commissioned as ensigns--hoping to make each sub captain careful but decisive, reliant but not dependent on his crew.

Much of the philosophy behind the training of submarine captains springs from the Navy’s experience during World War II, when it found that peacetime had bred a culture of diffidence and fear of failure.

Half of the sub commanders were fired in the first year of war for lacking the self-confidence to make the quick, sometimes risky, decisions necessary in battle. More than half a century later, those lessons have not been lost.

“You want someone who can think tactics and engineering and who can operate independently for a long time,” said retired Adm. Archie Clemins, a former submariner and commander of the Pacific Fleet. “You also need someone who can communicate clearly what they expect of every man aboard.”

Waddle’s background is typical of modern sub commanders: Naval Academy degree in chemistry, advanced training at “nuke school,” tours as an electrical officer, engineering officer and executive officer on several subs and shore duty on the staff of the Pacific Fleet commander and on the nuclear propulsion examining board.

For two years as CO of the Greeneville, he was considered one of the Navy’s top commanders, a good bet to make captain and, with luck and hard work, possibly admiral. In an evaluation by superiors last year, Waddle was given top marks across the board and was described as “inspirational” to his crew.

On a surface ship, a commanding officer--who spends much of his time on the ship’s bridge--can be a remote presence to most sailors, working through layers of subordinates.

But in a submarine, which has a control room but not a bridge, the CO’s personality “permeates the entire boat,” Friedman said.

If generalizations can be made, it can be said that surface commanders are taught to delegate authority but sub commanders are trained to have a mania for details, to be “wanderers” through their boat.

“Adm. [Hyman G.] Rickover [who handpicked a generation of submarine commanders] used to have an expression: ‘You don’t get what you expect, you get what you inspect,’ ” said retired Capt. Jerry Sullivan. “It’s true. You have to go out and see for yourself, to pay attention to every detail.”

During the Cold War, the Navy had 98 fast-attack submarines; that number has dwindled to 55. The number of ballistic-missile submarines, the so-called boomers, has dropped from 41 to 18, with more cuts planned.

Even years afterward, submarine skippers remember their tour of duty as the highlight of their careers.

“It’s the biggest rush in the world when you’re on that boat, taking it below the surface, to know that everybody there is depending on you,” said retired Capt. Bill Gaines, who commanded two submarines and an amphibious ship and is now a director at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

When The Times accompanied the submarine Salt Lake City three years ago on an overnight training mission, the CO--who then held the rank of commander--said that while he may someday be promoted and given greater strategic responsibilities, nothing will ever compare to commanding a sub at sea.

William French, now a captain involved with long-range planning for the U.S. Strategic Command, recently said nothing has changed his mind.

“Being a sub CO is still the most satisfying, demanding, rewarding thing in my career,” French said. “For exhilaration, it cannot be beaten.”

With crews of about 125, it is possible for a sub skipper to know virtually all of his men--compared with a surface commander who may have hundreds, even thousands, of sailors on his ship.

On a surface ship, areas commonly are marked as “officers’ country,” where enlisted sailors are forbidden. On a submarine, officers have their own wardroom and sleeping quarters, but there is not the sense of sharp division between the ranks.

“The amount of respect a submarine CO gets is equal to the amount of respect they give the crew,” said Rudy Yniguez, a former submarine sailor turned newspaper reporter in Imperial Valley.

Twice when the Pearl Harbor-based Greeneville came to San Diego in the past year, Waddle--the son of a retired Air Force colonel--accompanied his crew to the Horse and Cow, an off-base submariners’ “dive” complete with burgers, beer, darts, pool and a jukebox stuffed with country music.

Some submarine commanders, about whom there are ribald references on the walls of the Horse and Cow, unsuccessfully attempt to keep their crew from frequenting the establishment. Not Waddle.

“There are some captains that the guys clearly don’t like and think are dangerous,” said Horse and Cow owner Mike Looby. “But with Scott, his men respect him and say they’d be glad to go to war with him.”

There is a belief among submariners that much of the Navy’s tradition of rules and strict discipline is best left dockside. Submariners, for example, were the last U.S. sailors allowed to wear beards.

Peter Padfield, in his 1995 book “War Beneath the Sea”--an authoritative examination of submarine warfare in World War II--noted that submariners of all countries are a breed apart from other sailors, a view that many hold true even today.

“In every navy, the submarine service is a club apart with a particular esprit de corps, attracting the nonconformist seeking escape from the hierarchy and apple-polishing of a big-ship navy in peacetime,” Padfield wrote.

In the U.S. Navy, all submariners are volunteers; no one is assigned to submarine duty against his will. The submarine also is the last all-male vessel in the Navy.

Submariners get higher pay, better food and faster promotions than other sailors. There is also a Hollywood-enhanced glamour to submarine duty. It is a rare submarine that does not have a supply of submarine movies. (“This is where Jonesy works,” said a sailor aboard the Salt Lake City, a reference to the keen-eared sonar specialist in “The Hunt for Red October.”)

Romance aside, submariners also endure long weeks of deployment without seeing the sun or feeling a breeze on their cheeks. Given security concerns, foreign port calls are more limited than for many surface ships.

Surface ships also generally deploy in groups, centered on an aircraft carrier or an amphibious assault ship carrying Marines. Submarines deploy alone.

For a commanding officer, nearly every decision is made with imperfect information. Sonar does not have the clarity of radar and needs careful interpretation--both by computers and senior enlisted personnel. At no time is sonar information more vital than during surfacing.

“All ships go left and right, but only the submarine goes up and down,” Gaines said. “That’s what makes it exciting and risky.”

The average commanding officer has 18 years’ service before “getting his own boat.” Unlike the British Navy, the U.S. Navy requires sub skippers to have extensive training and experience in engineering and nuclear propulsion.

In 1999, with Waddle as CO, the Greeneville completed a risky practice maneuver off Hawaii--in conjunction with the Japanese maritime force--in which a “downed” sub was rescued off the ocean floor. It is unclear what mention will be made of that success when the court of inquiry reviews Waddle’s career and his role in the Feb. 9 disaster.

“There isn’t a submariner in the world who doesn’t feel sympathy for him,” said retired British submariner Capt. Richard Sharpe, editor of Jane’s Fighting Ships. “You give an order based on the information you have, and it all goes bad. It’s every submarine commander’s nightmare.”