It was just before suppertime under the Arabian Sea when a routine
ascent to periscope depth turned strange for the nuclear-powered attack
submarine Providence.
The antenna breached the surface to scoop down the latest messages from
the satellite. The teletype in the cramped radio room beeped a special
alert. The radioman scanned the top of the page and looked Scott Bawden
in the eye.
"Captain, take a look," said James Gilley. "I think this is not a normal
message. There is definitely something wrong out there."
Bawden ripped four paragraphs off the roll. "Get the XO in here," he
ordered.
Homeward bound almost five weary months, the former Marine reviewed what
he had on board, and what those missiles could do.
"XO" Tony Gamboa -- Bawden's big, furrow-browed executive officer --
appeared in seconds. "Captain, this is not an exercise," Gamboa said
when he read the news.
Put on the war paint, Gamboa thought, as he rushed off to call the
officers together.
After Bawden left, assistant radioman Marcus Koegler saw the message.
Then he raised BBC news and heard the screams -- not a polished report,
but raw bedlam, from New York. Fire trucks. Sirens. A woman crying in
anguish.
Man, this is for real, he thought, scribbling notes for the crew. It
would fall to Koegler, 21, to field the murmured queries of shipmates.
"Hey man, this for real?" guys asked.
" 'Fraid so," Koegler would answer.
Jarred awake
DOWN BELOW in the 21-man quarters, Ian
Seyerle's gut told him something was wrong. One moment, the lanky fire
control technician was asleep in his rack -- on course from the Strait
of Hormuz for Bab el Mandeb, Suez, the Mediterranean, and ultimately
Naval Submarine Base New London. The next moment, he was jarred awake by
the hard port rudder -- a hairpin turn that felt like a big jet banking,
with jostle from the waves at periscope depth.
The sub was churning back toward the Northern Arabian Sea.
Then Bawden came over the ship's intercom, the 1MC, with a terse recap
of the past two hours in Lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon.
Seyerle, who comes from the New Jersey suburbs, felt stunned. Then came
a creeping fear that would dog him for weeks. His mother and his
girlfriend would have crossed the Hudson to get to their jobs at Circle
Line, the tour boat company. Probably they're OK, he was thinking.
Maybe, he thought, they're at the Circle Line office by the Lincoln
Tunnel, well uptown from the World Trade Center. So maybe they're OK.
But still. . . . Roseanne Seyerle and Teresa Troegler both worked in
sales and his girlfiend was always calling on clients in the Twin
Towers. Seyerle's mom was a big walker -- she could easily be in the
area.
The captain's voice cut through his thoughts. "Gentlemen, make no
mistake," he continued over the 1MC. "We are standing by to do the
president's tasking and we're here indefinitely."
The boat then went deep and made for its battle station at best speed.
Armed with more than two dozen Tomahawk missiles, the Providence was
embarked on the first submarine war patrol of the 21st century.
A cancelled clambake
BACK IN Southeastern Connecticut, the
sky was crystal. The Thames was glass. High on a hill in Groton, above
the squadron of attack boats lashed to the piers, the top brass were
gathered at their oldest base for the annual clambake.
Adm. Frank L. "Skip" Bowman, basically the CEO of the undersea Navy,
broke into the morning speeches to report that the incidents in New York
were part of a coordinated terrorist strike, possibly still under way.
The stage was surrendered to cable TV news, the clambake suspended, and
Sub Base New London secured. Bowman and his top commander, Adm. John J.
Grossenbacher, went down to the waterfront.
Grossenbacher, a no-nonsense submariner from the old school, was enraged
about the attack and frustrated to be marooned so far from his command
post in Norfolk. But as the admirals mingled with sailors laying in
stores for possible deployment, his sense of powerlessness gave way to
confidence.
Most of what could be done, had been done over the course of the most
trying decade in the modern annals of the submarine force.
For submarines, the end of the Cold War was more than the bottom of
another boom-and-bust cycle in the weapons business. It was the loss of
a mission that defined the Silent Service and justified its gigantic
cost.
Electric Boat, the shipyard downriver from "The Submarine Capital of the
World," had lost 15,000 jobs since the Reagan days. At one point, the
Navy had begged for orders for new subs -- not to battle any clear and
present danger -- but to keep the shipbuilder afloat.
This was galling to a proud service. Submarines had been the heroes of
the dark first months of World War II, curbing Japan's island-hopping
conquest of the Pacific. After the war, subs rapidly evolved into a
potent anti-Soviet deterrent force, under the command of the legendary
Adm. Hyman G. Rickover. Giant "boomers" carried long-range nuclear
missiles on permanent patrol against the Soviet Union. Fast-attack boats
kept Soviet subs in check and performed audacious spying missions.
But the submarine's stealth was alloyed with a stubborn flaw: isolation
from the fleet. Communication from under water was extraordinarily
difficult and, from the surface, potentially dangerous. That's because
transmissions from an antenna on the surface could betray the location
of the sub.
Submariners therefore developed strict rules for survival, including
"receive-only" protocols that allowed message checks twice-daily -- or
less.
In theory, subs could build a new mission out of versatility. Who else
could drop Navy SEALS on the beach and shoot missiles from under the
sea? But in practice, the line officers of the basic Navy fighting
force, the aircraft carrier battle group, had never worked closely with
submarines. And when the attack sub Oklahoma City was unable to carry
out a Tomahawk launch order during the Bosnian conflict in 1995, the
entire force felt the embarrassment.
No wonder then that the sub force fared so poorly during the Pentagon's
cut-throat budget fights of the 1990s.
"We can't get a date to the prom because we have no telephone," Rear
Adm. Robert E. Frick lamented to colleagues at one submariners'
convention in 1997.
To correct that flaw, the Naval Underwater Warfare Center, a low-profile
outpost of about 2,700 employees in Middletown, spent much of the decade
trying to get submarines on-line and talking. The key was an antenna
that could poke out of the water to pick up and send data without
broadcasting the sub's location.
They succeeded, and for submariners inured to disengagement from the
outside world, the Raytheon-manufactured HDR mast (for "high-data-rate")
was an astonishing new toy.
The Providence had been among the first old subs retooled for that new
"telephone," just in time to get a date for the war on terrorism.
Targeting the Taliban
Less than 12 hours after Bawden
ordered the course change, the Providence arrived at its battle station
off the coast of Pakistan. The boat rose to periscope depth, popped the
HDR mast and reported to the still-distant carrier Enterprise. Rear Adm.
John Morgan, the battle group commander, asked where Bawden thought the
frontlines would be.
"Right about here," said the former Marine. Never mind that Taliban
headquarters was in landlocked Afghanistan, more than 300 miles from the
water's edge. Most of the country was well within Tomahawk range and
there was plenty of quieter work to be done from under the Arabian Sea.
Bawden, 46, was a submarine driver with a one-of-a-kind résumé. He was
second-born in a brood of eight who bounced from coast to coast through
their mother's five marriages -- "a lot like being in the military," he
jokes. After a year at Clark University, in Worcester, Bawden joined the
Marines in 1975, because he was broke. The plan was one hitch and back
to school on the GI Bill. But the Marines selected him for officer
training, so he went to the University of Washington in uniform.
Navy guys in the training unit there coaxed Bawden to accept a free trip
to Washington, D.C., to check out what they called "an exciting program
that had to do with engineering."
Bawden had never heard of Admiral Rickover, the cranky old four-star
never wore a uniform. Nor did Bawden get one of the notorious grillings
dished out to so many candidates who sat before the father of the
nuclear Navy. Maybe the Marine uniform exempted him. In any event,
Bawden had no clue that this pleasant conversation with the
frail-looking, beak-nosed gentleman was actually his interview for
"nukes" -- and the prospect of an eventual submarine command.
Bawden got his command last year, with his Marine outlook still intact.
"These days, life around us is very complicated, and it's easy to get
distracted from what your true purpose is," he said. The purpose taught
by the Marines is "the singular focus on the craft and skill of
war-fighting," said Bawden, a rare Parris Island graduate who likes to
trace his obsession with training to the ancient scholars of warfare.
On deployment for almost six months now, the Providence had trained
rigorously with the Enterprise battle group, proving its stunning new
capacity to communicate and share intelligence. On Sept. 12, Providence
and a sister sub, the Key West, plunged into "battlespace preparation"
-- Navy jargon for stealthy reconnaissance.
As the battle force gathered, the Providence downloaded target data for
the Tomahawks. In time, Bawden wrote later, the submarine had "a
crystal-clear picture of the world around us." And the captain kept
drilling his crew for a Tomahawk strike.
He also kept a close watch on crew morale. Bawden met with all of the
roughly 110 men on board. One order of business was to have Chief of the
Boat Sheldon McElhinney canvass the crew for names of loved ones
potentially endangered by the Sept. 11 attacks. McElhinney, the senior
enlisted man, sent the names back to Sub Group Two, which made the
checks.
Within a few days, word came back from Groton on the safety of a former
shipmate, Lt. Cmdr. Mike Cockey, who had been in the Pentagon, and of
all the friends and kin of crew who might have been near the World Trade
Center.
All, that is, except Seyerle's mother and girlfriend. "I was more
worried," he said. Work became refuge for Seyerle. He plunged into the
new world of communications -- "comms" -- made real by the HDR mast. He
was one of the sailors who devised "chat-room for strike" that allowed a
dozen or more weapons specialists around the fleet to swap data
instantly. The first clear videos from Sept. 11 weren't widely seen
until two weeks later, when Providence took on stores from the supply
ship Sacramento.
Military traffic ate up satellite time, so e-mails from home were
infrequent.
Customary distractions like Cigar Night came and went. So did another
celebration scheduled for the halfway point of their mission. This time,
the men were mindful of what had happened since wives and sweethearts
had wrapped the love notes and the presents to be opened this night.
Bawden, who'd already gotten word that his family was safe, opened a
great note from his wife, Gina.
But for Seyerle: Weeks had gone by and still no word from Teresa or his
mom. Fear edged toward dread. Radioman Koegler began to keep a lookout.
The current state of security required an officer to review incoming
messages before they were shipped to crew. Koegler was often in the
ticklish position of seeing private messages first.
On board, as sunless September wore into sunless October, the "birdies"
got to talking -- submarine lingo for the running of the rumor mill.
Spiking between thwarted excitement and comatose boredom, sailors
speculated nonstop about whether, when, how, and at whom they were
"gonna go."
Koegler was standing his watch in Radio near the end of September when
Seyerle's e-mail arrived: Teresa Troegler and Roseanne Seyerle were safe.
Seyerle saw Koegler coming into Crew's Mess. Koegler caught him as they
lined up for food. "Hey," Koegler told his friend, touching his arm,
"you may want to check your e-mail." Koegler's round face gave no clue.
Seyerle flew down the ladder and ran 50 feet to log on to the common
computer in the Torpedo Room.
Click: E-mail from Teresa. She's OK. And his mom? Seyerle scanned the
screen. Mom's OK.
Seyerle felt the rush of his spirits. Then he read the long, almost
unbelievable story. Yes, Teresa and Roseanne had both in the Circle Line
office in Midtown when the first plane hit and the second and they had
watched the sickening crash, first the South Tower, then the North.
Circle Line workers threw the tour boats into emergency service,
ferrying people to safety on the New Jersey side. Like everybody around
them, Seyerle's mom and his girl threw themselves into service --
comforting victims while keeping an orderly flow of lines to the boats.
Hour on end and into the night they worked.
Seyerle was suffused with relief, with pride, a sense finally that
everything was going to be OK. Everybody's doing their part, he thought.
Nobody's job is too little.
'We're ready'
A few days deeper into the long wait,
the captain came on over the 1MC:
"Gentlemen, we have been tasked."
He gave a bare account from the myriad details on the many feet of
message roll that had been ripped from the teletype.
"Gentlemen, this is what we've been trained to do and we have no
expectation other than success. This is combat. We have trained for
combat, so we're ready."
Lt. Cmdr. Joe Baldi's navigation crew perfected the speed, depth,
location and attitude of the boat -- essential not just for targeting,
but for the life-and-death matter of safe launch.
All ears were screwed to headsets in Radio, listening on multiple
frequencies to the ocean of incoming data from the HDR mast.
Upward of 20 men crowded around the twin periscopes and the rows of
computer screens in the Control Room -- the boat's nerve center. Captain
Bawden's voice was heard, working through the items on the check list.
The red "Batphone," the direct link to the battle group, was for the
worst case, a command to abort.
Seyerle sat at his console where he had toiled, sleep-deprived, for 18
hours. Before him was the row of 12 buttons, one for each missile,
inscribed in black with the word, "Fire." Seyerle was at ease.
Everything was going to be fine.
"Commence launch," Bawden said, handing control to Lt. Cmdr. Jeff
Fatori, the weapons officer. Fatori ticked off the last few items on the
checklist.
"Stand by and launch," Fatori said, calling the number of the verticle
tube assigned to the first salvo of the counterattack.
All hands heard the rush of hydraulic oil opening the hatch, familiar
from innumerable drills.
Then the Tomahawk booster ignited for launch and the 6,900-ton ship
suddenly fell deeper -- by an inch or two -- into the sea.
Nobody on board had ever felt that bump, abrupt and brief, that meant
the start of what Bawden later called "complete success."
It was just before nightfall on Oct. 7, 2001. At 9:20 p.m., explosions
lit the night sky as the first missiles reached Kabul.
As Operation Enduring Freedom rolled through October, "Providence became
the platform of choice for rapid Tomahawk engagements," Bawden wrote
later.
When it was some other ship's turn, the word would go out to the battle
group: Something's in the air. And the submarine crew would wait for the
shot to hit its target.
"And, bang, the word would come back. Done," recalled Koegler.
On board Providence, "the crew, to a man, would be like: Do we get to go
this time? Do we get to go? Then the word would come. Cool! We're next
on the list. We're going."
The elation of smooth operations wasn't restricted to the captain or
Koegler or Seyerle, or Navigation or Weapons or any single division.
Near the end, "There was this one strike, and it just went so well," he
Koegler said. "Everybody did their job. Comms (communications) were
great. They got everything off the boat quick -- faster than even the
crew expected. Then it was done. Perfect."
BAM!
A DOOR smashed against a bulkhead, the kind of din
always shunned in this silent kingdom -- never tolerated during missile
launch.
Only one man on board could make that sudden smash without heads
rolling. This had to be the door to the captain's state room.
BAM!
Echoed loudly in the open communications mike around the corner in
Control.
Then just as suddenly -- to the rush of recognition and wild laughter
around the boat -- came a beat from the captain's dinky stereo, a tune
heard for two decades in ballparks and soccer stadiums and pop arenas
around the world.
But surely the thumping anthem had never been heard between missile
shots from a nuclear sub on war patrol:
Tom-tom, SNARE
Tom-tom, SNARE
"WE WILL . . .
"WE WILL . . .
"ROCK YOU!"
