A deep red glow was receding from the horizon as a helicopter beat a steady path through the darkness, south across the Gulf of Mexico. Beneath the Sikorsky S-70B Seahawk, the ocean was mostly a vast, empty expanse with intermittent yellow dots on the dark water marking the location of oil and natural gas platforms far out to sea. Inside the helicopter, Captain Murray Wilson stared out the passenger side window, his eyes fixed on the fading horizon while his thoughts dwelt elsewhere.
Six hours earlier, he had boarded a flight from Norfolk to Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, where he’d transferred aboard the awaiting Seahawk helicopter for the second leg of his journey; USS North Carolina was already out to sea, heading south at maximum speed to reach the ASW barrier being established as soon as possible. The submarine had probably slowed and surfaced by now, since the Seahawk was approaching the rendezvous point.
A change to the beat of the helicopter’s rotors and the feeling of his seat falling out from under him announced the aircraft’s descent. A glance at the navigation display across from the pilot verified they had reached their destination. Wilson peered through the window, searching the ocean for the silhouette of a submarine against the dark water, eventually spotting the hazy outline on the surface.
The Seahawk slowed to a hover fifty feet above the submarine, the downdraft from its blades sending circular ripples across the calm ocean surface. Wilson moved aft into the cabin where two crewmen helped him into a harness, which they attached to a cable along with Wilson’s duffle bag.
Wilson was lowered from the side of the helicopter, the metal cable paying out slowly, the duffle bag swaying in the downdraft as the helicopter crew aimed to land him in the submarine’s Bridge cockpit. The submarine’s Lookout grabbed the duffle bag as it swung by, then pulled hard on the lanyard, guiding Wilson into the Bridge.
“Welcome aboard North Carolina,” Commander Jerry Maske shouted over the roar of the helicopter rotor.
Wilson returned the greeting as a seaman helped him out of his harness and unhooked his duffle bag, then the helicopter pulled up and away, its cable swaying in the wind as it headed north toward the Texas coast.
Commander Maske descended to the Control Room and Wilson followed.
“Rig the Bridge for Dive,” Maske ordered, then turned to Wilson for additional guidance.
“Let’s talk in your stateroom,” Wilson said.
Maske closed his stateroom door, then waited expectantly for Wilson to explain why North Carolina had been ordered south at maximum speed and he had been transferred aboard. Although Maske and his crew knew something was up—the entire Atlantic Fleet had been sortied to sea and several P-8A squadrons had been transferred from PAC to support the effort—the specifics had not been shared widely. That the Fleet was searching for a Russian submarine approaching the East Coast seemed obvious, but the Fleet’s orders to sink Kazan had been transmitted only to the units participating in the effort.
Wilson pulled an orange folder containing the sensitive order from his duffle bag, along with the directive to replace Maske as the submarine’s commanding officer, both of which were a surprise to Maske.
“Wow,” Maske said as he sat down, although Wilson wasn’t sure to which directive he was responding.
Wilson tried to assuage the younger man’s presumably hurt feelings—COMSUBLANT had deemed him inadequate for the task.
“This is nothing against you,” Wilson said. “It’s just that given the unique circumstances surrounding North Carolina and her crew, Admiral Andrea wanted a more experienced officer in command.”
Maske took it better than Wilson expected. “I understand, sir. This is my first trip to sea as a commanding officer, with an untested submarine and a green crew. To tell you the truth, given these orders, I’m glad you’re aboard. I would’ve second-guessed every decision I made.”
“All right, then,” Wilson said. “Let’s break the news to the crew.”
Maske entered the Control Room, followed by Wilson, who picked up the 1-MC microphone.
“Attention, all hands,” he began.
He revealed the submarine’s new order, which was met with a mix of enthusiasm and consternation from the Control Room watchstanders. Personally, Wilson shared the latter. Detecting, tracking, and prosecuting an enemy submarine was far more complex than illuminating a target with radar for a few seconds and launching a fire-and-forget missile. It required experience, intuition, and teamwork that took months to develop and sometimes hours to execute. The cat-and-mouse game between two blind opponents, listening to decipher the other’s location and movements, was often a painstaking ordeal.
Wilson paused a moment to let the crew absorb their new order before discussing the second, rather delicate issue. When he explained he was taking command of North Carolina, all eyes in the Control Room shifted to Maske. To his credit, Maske stood beside him stoically, displaying no hint of resentment.
Wilson replaced the 1-MC microphone, then prepared to relieve Maske as commanding officer. Although Wilson had been aboard plenty of Virginia class submarines while training new commanding and executive officers, he took a moment to refamiliarize himself with the Virginia class’s unique characteristics, a departure from traditional submarine design and operations.
The most obvious difference was that Sonar was in the Control Room instead of a separate room, with sonar technicians manning the consoles on the port side while fire control technicians manned the starboard consoles. Although Sonar had been added to Control, the periscopes had been removed. Virginia class submarines employed two photonics masts, which didn’t penetrate the pressure hull—there was no periscope to press your eye against or dance with in endless circles for countless hours. The Officer of the Deck instead sat at a tactical workstation, raising and lowering a photonics mast with a flick of a switch and rotating it with a joystick, while monitoring the image on one of two displays at his workstation.
The most unsettling aspect of the Virginia class design changes, as far as Wilson was concerned, was ship control. The four watchstanders on previous submarines—the Helm, Outboard, Chief of the Watch, and Diving Officer of the Watch—had been replaced by two watchstanders: the Pilot and Co-Pilot, who manned the Ship Control Station. The Pilot controlled the submarine’s course, speed, and depth while the Co-Pilot adjusted the buoyancy and raised and lowered the masts and antennas. Wilson figured that someone in the design shop must have forgotten they were building submarines and not aircraft; it all amounted to a horrendous break in nautical tradition.
If that weren’t enough, normal control of the submarine had been delegated to the submarine’s computer. On Virginia class submarines, when the Officer of the Deck ordered a new course or depth, the Pilot entered it into the Ship Control Station and the computer automatically adjusted the submarine’s rudder, or bow and stern planes, to the optimal angle. If desired, manual control could be taken by giving the Pilot a specific rudder order or ship angle, but it was normally a hands-off operation aside from tapping in the new course or depth. The computer did the rest.
Wilson spent the next few minutes receiving a turnover report from Commander Maske, discussing the ship’s operational status and material condition. Once satisfied he knew enough—he would spend the next few hours reviewing the submarine’s status and the crew’s proficiency in more detail—he relieved Maske of his command.
“Attention in Control,” Wilson announced. “This is Captain Murray Wilson. I have command of North Carolina.”
The Quartermaster entered the event into the ship’s log as Wilson ordered the Officer of the Deck, “Submerge to four hundred feet, then come to course one-seven-zero, ahead flank.”