The ORI required the Enterprise to conduct operations similar to those in Vietnam. The air wing flew from the carrier to attack targets at the El Centro, California, Bombing and Gunnery ranges with live 500-pound bombs, and firing their annual training allowance of guided missiles against radio-controlled drone aircraft.
The ORI is a very intensive, seventy-two-hour session with few members of the ship’s company or the inspectors getting much sleep. The carrier is presented with battle damage as the inspectors deliberately disable items of equipment to simulate that damage, and the ship is required to continue its operations without a break utilizing emergency procedures and jury-rigged secondary systems.
Admiral Rickover’s group in Washington had sent a special detachment from his training group, the Enterprise land-based prototype at Arco, Idaho, to simulate casualties to the engineering plant. That was the area with which I was most concerned. But the reactor officer and chief engineer each did their expected professional job of reacting to the problems imposed upon them by Rickover’s crew. They even gained grudging praise from the inspection group.
On Friday afternoon the battle problem ended, damage was restored, and the inspection team briefed the admiral as the Enterprise headed back toward San Diego. Before reaching port, the admiral called me into his cabin and offered his congratulations on the fine performance of the ship. The admiral said he was particularly impressed by the improvement in the CIC, which had been unsatisfactory in the preliminary operational readiness evaluation but during the ORI had been given the highest mark awarded so far that year to a carrier CIC by inspectors from the Fleet Training Group.
The communications department, which had also received an unsatisfactory preliminary grade on the ORE, had similarly improved and also received a grade of outstanding. These evaluations turned out to be so superior that, when the competitive year ended, the Enterprise had the highest grade of any carrier CIC and Communications Department in the Pacific Fleet. This resulted in the ship winning the Efficiency Award, or “E,” for all Combat Information Centers and Communications Departments among the Pacific Fleet carriers.
With the operational readiness inspection concluded, the Enterprise returned to San Francisco Bay and its pier at Alameda for ten final days in port before deploying again to the western Pacific. The predeployment availability is intended to be used to rectify any last-minute engineering or material problems and to load the ship with spare parts for the reactors and the ship’s electronics gear. The most complicated aspect of the spare parts loadout was to ensure that we had the necessary test equipment and spare parts for the six different kinds of aircraft that would be included in the carrier’s air wing.
The combat consumables, aviation fuel and ammunition, were only partially loaded in order to keep the carrier’s draft from becoming too deep to safely enter Pearl Harbor, and also to defer the loading of some relatively dangerous munitions that were considered too sensitive to handle in large quantities on board the carrier berthed in the metropolitan area of San Francisco. The balance of the ammunition load would be taken on board in Pearl Harbor and the aviation fuel from oilers after the carrier had sortied from Hawaii.
On 19 November 1966 the Enterprise was underway from Alameda again to spend its second consecutive Christmas on the line in the Gulf of Tonkin flying combat missions against the enemy in Vietnam. Five days later, the Enterprise arrived off Diamond Head on the island of Oahu and received instructions from the Harbor Entry Control Post to proceed into Pearl Harbor and moor at the ammunition pier. This caused raised eyebrows among some experienced Pacific Fleet officers, as no carrier larger than a Midway-class ship had been berthed at the ammunition pier because of the limited depth of water and the restricted maneuvering room afforded by the approaches to the mooring.
My concern was compounded when the helicopter with the civilian harbor pilot, provided by the naval base to conn the carriers through the tricky channels of the Port of Pearl Harbor, landed on board. The pilot stumbled twice before getting to the bridge and had a whisky breath that could stun an ox at six feet. Also disembarking from the helo were two old friends of mine, then assigned to the CinCPac staff, both captains and former carrier skippers. They had ridden out on the helicopter for a social visit to welcome me to Hawaii. Both were full of conversation and gossip about what was going on in Hawaii and what was happening back on the mainland. I realized immediately that it would be impossible for the civilian pilot to take the conn because of his inebriated condition. I would have to take the ship into Pearl Harbor on my own.
It was politely suggested to the pilot that because this was a nuclear-powered ship it was policy that the captain retain the conn, but I invited him to stand next to me and provide any advice as we maneuvered around Ford Island to the other side of Pearl, where the ammunition pier was located. The pilot had no problem disengaging himself from the officers in the pilothouse, and he retreated to the starboard wing of the bridge, where he draped himself over the windshield. The quartermaster’s greatest fear was that he was going to throw up on the admiral’s bridge just below.
As far as my well meaning but garrulous friends were concerned, I gave them all of my attention until the Enterprise entered the channel to Pearl Harbor, and at this point I simply reminded them, as the former skippers they were, that I was going to be fully occupied bringing the Enterprise to its berth, considering the condition of the professional pilot.
When the Enterprise arrived at the ammo pier, a second pilot, with six tugs at his command to do the docking, came on board by Jacob’s ladder to work the carrier into its berth. He was sober and competent and knew the capabilities of the tugs, which I did not. With the help of six harbor tugs, and the flexibility of eight reactors and four propellers, the Enterprise made the landing at the pier without any particular trouble. Fortunately the wind was almost calm. With the high hull sides of a carrier, a strong wind on the beam could create much difficulty in getting these big ships to go where they were supposed to go at slow speeds.
There were moments of concern when the fathometer registered zero depth, but the pilot explained that this was due to the soft bottom mud at the ammo pier, which had been stirred up by the carrier’s screws, and that there was probably a foot of water under the keel and three more feet of thin mud before the ship would hit a hard-grounding bottom. This may have been an accurate observation situation, but it was not altogether comforting.
Two days later, having taken on board the explosive cargo at the ammunition pier, the Enterprise got underway and moved to the carrier pier at Ford Island without incident, which was fortunate. One year later the Enterprise, under the command of its next captain, ran aground attempting to moor at the ammunition pier. In his efforts to extricate the carrier, the ship’s engines were used at a high-power setting that sucked mud from the bottom into the ship’s condensers, fouling them to the extent that the exhaust steam from the engine was not condensed into feed water. This loss of feed water to the boilers resulted in seven of the eight reactors scramming. A scram occurs when a reactor automatically shuts itself down because the reactor instrumentation perceives an emergency situation that could cause a nuclear accident or do damage to the reactor core. After a scram, the entire reactor plant has to be shut down and carefully inspected to determine if any damage has occurred.