There were three main problems to resolve. First, all the personal gear in the operating space had to be eliminated. Second, the supervisors had to get back to the actual operation of the equipment instead of standing around waiting for problems to develop. And third, the ranks of the off-duty personnel who were mainly engaged in keeping their coffee mugs filled had to be thinned out. The problems with the CIC were evident, and the solutions did not appear to be complex or difficult.
The chief master at arms was summoned and told to find an empty compartment among the many voids below the waterline. The purpose of these void compartments was to divide up the lower hull of the ship into watertight sections to limit the flooding that would occur from a collision or from battle damage that holed the underwater hull of the ship. These compartments were far below the main decks, but they were convenient for any kind of storage that did not require frequent access — perfect for our purposes. The crew’s overseas purchases would be stowed in these compartments and not reissued until the Enterprise returned to homeport. A sturdy hasp for double locking was welded onto the access door, and the ship’s supply officer was responsible for the storage, security, accountability and issue of the men’s property. The Enterprise’s supply officer immediately took charge and made our crew’s personal-gear storage system the model for the Pacific Fleet carriers.
A Supply Corps lieutenant, with a first-class petty officer assistant, was assigned the administration of the storeroom, responsible for preventing any damage or pilferage to the articles stored there. The nooks and corners of the living spaces of the junior officers’ bunkrooms and sailors’ berthing compartments had been the only available space for storing their personal belongings and the loot from the bargaining sessions with Asian merchants.
At the new storage space, hasps were installed, the door locked securely, and the record and accounting books were all in place by eight o’clock that evening. By midnight, CIC had been sanitized of every item and piece of equipment other than those listed on the Bureau of Ships authorized allowance. The second action was to establish a firm policy that during general quarters and flight quarters, the petty officers assigned to CIC would be seated at the radar consoles and maintain the status boards and situation plots. They would be assisted by the seamen strikers. The coffee mess was shut down during general quarters. While underway, only those men on watch were permitted to use the coffee mess.
With the senior petty officers and the most experienced technicians wearing the earphones, operating the equipment, and maintaining the plots, the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire CIC operation took a giant step upward. Now the CIC spaces more resembled an operating room ready for open-heart surgery than a room full of sailors having a coffee klatch in a godown (Chinese warehouse).
At first I had some concern about the reaction of the first-class petty officers and chiefs being put back on the consoles and plots. But with the extraordinarily high levels of activity generated by the operations in Vietnam, they had their hands full dealing with the rapidly developing situations encountered in modern warfare. They were far from bored and took a renewed interest in their primary responsibilities. As the cruise progressed and the Enterprise CIC won top grades on the ORI and was awarded the “E” for the best CIC in the fleet, morale was never a problem among the CIC personnel.
Now I have to answer a question. How could the CIC operation have so deteriorated and why had I not learned about it? My explanation is that it could happen in any department, division, or section of a ship as large as a carrier. The CO and XO do not have the opportunity to oversee all of the ship’s operations on a regular basis. This is especially true during operations at sea and at general quarters, when the CO must be on the bridge and the XO is at his battle station at the secondary conning station in the steering engine room at the stern of the ship.
A replacement CIC officer had reported on board the Enterprise in July and taken over in a single week to enable his predecessor to take twenty days’ leave prior to reporting to his next duty station. This new officer, a lieutenant commander, was inexperienced in CICs, although he had held a responsible job in the patrol squadron from which he came. He had been through the CIC school and fighter director training, but these facilities can only teach the technical aspects of the equipment and the mandatory procedures that are established by fleet doctrine. For an officer who has never served on a ship, there is the temptation to follow the path of least resistance. What can happen in these situations is that the new officer is told by his senior petty officers, “This is the way it’s always been done in this ship. By keeping the senior petty officers off the consoles and the plotting boards they can be available to step in and take over in case of an emergency or crisis.” This makes life a lot easier for the senior petty officers and gives them lots of time for schmoozing. The problem with this approach is that when things get dicey and the petty officers have to get back on the consoles, they may not be ready to take over without an adequate briefing on the current situation to bring them up to speed.
READY FOR WAR AGAIN
The ORI was a formal affair, as I pointed out, conducted by a two-star admiral who was a carrier division commander, having two aircraft carriers under his administrative command. His staff of experienced aviators had returned only three months earlier from a seven-month tour in the Tonkin Gulf embarked in the Enterprise’s contemporary carriers, the large-deck carriers in Task Force 77. The carrier division staff was aided by fifty or sixty officers and petty officers of the Naval Training Group from San Diego who set up the battle problem and kept the statistical score, reporting the reaction of the Enterprise’s crew to the various incidents thrown at them.
The battle problem simulated a carrier conducting operations off Vietnam. The rear admiral played the role of a task group commander, with the Enterprise as his flagship. He and his staff physically moved on board the Enterprise, occupying the flag quarters, subsisting on board for the period of the ORI and using the flag plotting room as their command center. The admiral was the chief inspector for the ORI and would personally sign and forward the report of the inspection to the commander, Air Forces, Pacific Fleet, who would then report to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations as to the readiness of the ship to deploy overseas and conduct high-tempo combat operations in the western Pacific.