A collection of experiences that have washed ashore during a 40-year career in the United States Navy.
In April 1977 the Mediterranean deployment of US Seahorse was drawing to a close.
We were back in La Maddalena, Sardinia, Italy for our last upkeep alongside the submarine tender, USS Howard W. Gilmore and we were enjoying a very nice spell of spring weather.
One of the special features about La Maddalena was the submarine officer sanctuary which was established by the first Commodore, Al Burkhalter. He had arranged for the Navy to lease a villa in the resort community of Porto Rafael which is just across the water from the island of La Maddalena. The villa belonged to the Rook family who lived in England, and we called it "The Rook House." It had a great view of the islands of the La Maddalena archipelago and had overnight accommodations for about ten. It provided an ideal sanctuary, away from the cramped living conditions on board a submarine.
On a very pleasant afternoon, the officers from Seahorse were enjoying a barbeque on the patio of the Rook House and I decided that it was an ideal time to find out their feelings about in-port working hours in Charleston, S.C., our home port.
On my last tour in Washington, DC I had been very involved in writing a legislative proposal for Congress to approve a special bonus for nuclear submarine officers to help solve a retention problem.
Many submarine officers were leaving the Navy and our surveys indicated that one of their principal issues was the long working hours while in home port which cut into their time to spend with their families.
I opened the conversation by noting that we had all left the ship about 1500 (3 p.m.) and were enjoying a pleasant evening; wouldn't it be nice to be able to do the same thing once we got back to Charleston? This was followed by a long silence from the wardroom. Finally one of the officers said that getting off the ship before 1800 was just not possible. I said that we had the same responsibilities and work load whether we were in Charleston or in the Mediterranean, yet we left the ship at 1500 today; what was the problem in Charleston? This observation got the conversation going and I heard a lot about the officer work load problems over the next few hours.
The difference between La Maddalena and Charleston boiled down to significantly less external tasking while deployed, whereas in home port, the officers had to deal with tasking from the local submarine squadron, COMSUBLANT and Naval Reactors, coordination with the shipyard, the Naval Supply System and many more agencies.
By the time they had dealt with all the external tasking, they still had to complete their internal ship administrative assignments which they would start at 1700 and then hope to finish by 1900 so that they could leave the ship and get home to a late dinner with their families.
On top of these daily work load problems, the officers were required to stand in-port duty officer watches which amounted to one day out of every four or five during which they would spend the night aboard the ship. In fact, most of the officers used this extra time to get caught up on the work that they had put off.
I asked them for their solutions to this problem, and they asked for more telephone lines to the ship.
This was 1977, before cell phones, the internet and computers. We had four telephone lines: two in the wardroom, one for the CO/XO and one in the control room for use by the crew.
During the day, these phones were in constant use and someone was always waiting to make the next call. I asked them if we needed more telephones when we were in La Maddalena, they said no, as the phones were never busy.
I thought about our discussions overnight and the next day met with the wardroom and told them that my solution to the work load problem wasn't to get more phone lines but to reduce the external tasking to the ship. The way to do this was to cut off the phones after a certain time and to stop outside agencies from coming on board the ship after the same time.
I went on to ask them if they had ever tried to go to the local bank after 3 p.m. (remember this was 1977). Banks pulled down the shade on their windows and doors at 3 p.m. and were closed for business.
That did not mean that they had all gone home. In fact they had a great deal of internal business, balancing the books, counting their cash and locking everything up so that they could go home a 4:30 p.m.
I told them that we would be just like the First National Bank of Charleston and pull down that shade at 1500 by cutting off all phone calls (in and out) and restricting access to the ship so that we could all go home at 1630. The officers liked the idea, but felt that 1500 was too early and we compromised on 1600.
When we got back to Charleston, I briefed the Commodore on my plans, and he agreed to support me and we put "banker's hours" into effect on USS Seahorse. It worked and I started to see the officers leaving the ship at a reasonable time. This solution worked then, but will not work today with our ever expanding inter-connectedness with cell phones, Blackberries and the Internet. Even the banks have given up closing early. I am not sure that this is progress.
© 2008 Hank McKinney
