Into the Fire

CHAPTER NINE

“Time to turn?” Kate Bigelow said to her junior officer of the deck as she momentarily leaned into the pilothouse. She was standing on the port wing of Milwaukee with her binoculars trained on a nest of fishing vessels operating off the north coast of Cheju Do Island.

“We’ll come right to new course two-eight-five in about twenty minutes, ma’am,” the JOOD replied.

“Very well.”

The transit from Sasebo had been smooth, but the weather in the Yellow Sea could change instantly. The only sure thing was that it would be cold. She had made certain her chief bos’n, who also served as the Milwaukee’s first lieutenant, had broken out and inventoried the ship’s cold-weather gear before they left Yokosuka. A great deal of mine-hunting and mine-clearing work exposed her crew to the elements, and she knew that when sailors got cold, they got tired. And when they got tired, they got injured. She wanted to return to Singapore with her crew intact. That and completing her mission were her dual priorities.

“What’s the latest on the Reagan CSG?” Bigelow asked out loud as she stepped into the pilothouse.

USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) and her escorts — otherwise called the Reagan carrier strike group — were now steaming south out of the Yellow Sea, just as Milwaukee and Defender were entering. The Chinese had recently extended the boundaries of both their air-defense identification zone, or ADIZ, and their claimed exclusive economic zone, their EEZ, well out into the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea — extensions that overlapped those same zones claimed by South Korea and Japan respectively. Within this ADIZ, the Chinese required all air and maritime traffic to check in with their coastal military commands for permission to be in the ADIZ. China’s claims were in direct conflict with what America and most other maritime nations held as international waters with freedom of navigation. Since then, American carrier strike groups had routinely — and purposefully — steamed through those areas without the requests for right of passage China demanded. These FON — or freedom of navigation — operations were designed to protest these types of illegal claims and had been going on for decades. But tensions were always highest when conducting these FON ops in waters claimed by China and especially in those claimed by North Korea. Those two nations stood out as having the most controversial — even bizarre — illegal maritime claims that ran counter to all norms of international law.

Now the Reagan carrier strike group was steaming south away from the Chinese mainland and would then swing east around the Korean Peninsula and Cheju Do Island to rendezvous with a Japanese naval element for a maritime exercise in the Sea of Japan.

“Ma’am, our closest point of approach to the Reagan carrier strike group will be about six miles at two-six-zero. That will take place five minutes ahead of our next scheduled turn. We start the PASSEX an hour before that and end it an hour later.”

“Very well, Sam. When we’re at our CPA, have radio send our regards to the CSG staff communicator.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

That’s where the action is, Bigelow thought. She was in e-mail contact with fellow officers and Naval Academy classmates stationed on destroyers and cruisers that had made what they called the Dragon Run — running near the coast of China from the Taiwan Strait north up to the Korean Peninsula. While not at general quarters, they were on alert with all sensors trained on the Chinese mainland, tracking People’s Liberation Army aircraft as they shadowed the American ships and made careful inventory of all electronic emissions and communications intelligence. It was as close as it got to steaming into harm’s way for units of the fleet, and it was exciting — a step away from the real thing. And here I am, she mused, playing at hunting mines with our South Korean allies. Mine hunting and mine clearing had always been a second-class, underappreciated mission of the U.S. Navy — strictly blue-collar work and well away from the more glamorous open-ocean, blue-water action.

Commander Kate Bigelow knew the blue-water Navy. She had served as a junior officer and qualified as a surface-warfare officer on an Aegis cruiser and had served as a department head on an Aegis destroyer. She knew what she wanted from this woman’s Navy, and it was command of a cruiser, one of the Navy’s Ticonderoga class of guided-missile cruisers with the Aegis Weapons System. But that was in the future. Ahead would be a shore tour, probably at the Pentagon; a promotion board that would consider her for advancement to captain; a joint tour on one of the unified combatant commander staffs; a selection board that would evaluate her against other high-performing post-commander-command officers; and then, if she were one of the lucky few, command of one of the Navy’s diminishing number of Aegis cruisers. The odds were long, but secretly she fancied her chances. There was a saying among naval officers climbing up the ranks: “Command was command was command.” Seagoing command happened only two or three times in a career, so she was determined to enjoy it in whatever form it came. That included Milwaukee. Indeed, she did relish command of the LCS, but she also saw it as a stepping stone to command of a major blue-water surface combatant.

I’ll get there, she said quietly to herself. Someday, I’ll get there.

“Beg pardon, Captain,” the JOOD said. “Did you say something?”

“Sorry, Sam,” she replied. “Just mumbling to myself.” Then, glancing at her watch she stated, “I’ll be in the wardroom for a meeting if anything comes up.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

Bigelow hurried down two levels to Milwaukee’s small wardroom, which served as a conference room as well as the officers’ mess. She tolerated no lateness at meetings and was herself careful to be punctual. When she arrived, they were waiting for her — Jack O’Connor; her operations officer, a seasoned lieutenant who would also serve as the mine-countermeasures officer for the exercise; her master chief bos’n, who as first lieutenant would be responsible for most of the topside exercise gear and deck personnel; and Chief Carol Picard, the lone corpsman aboard who would act as safety officer for the exercise.

“Good afternoon, everyone.”

“Good afternoon,” the assembled crew leaders chorused.

“Okay, Eric, this will be your show. What have you got for us?” Lieutenant Eric Ashburn had recently arrived on board Milwaukee fresh from department-head school. But he had been in the Navy longer than anyone in the room, with the exception of Master Chief Crabtree. Ashburn had been an enlisted electronics technician and rose quickly up his rating to first class petty officer. The Navy’s STA-21 Program, or Seaman-to-Admiral Program, sought to identify bright enlisted sailors, send them to college, and commission them as officers. It took Ashburn but three years to get his degree in electrical engineering from Georgia Tech. He then toured on an Arleigh Burke — class destroyer as the electronic maintenance officer and came to Milwaukee with outstanding fitness reports. In the short time aboard, he had quickly become one of Bigelow’s go-to officers. Even Jack O’Connor deferred to him on operational matters. He was smart, even-tempered, and, though he was frail in appearance, Bigelow perceived an underlying strength in the man. Even though he was a chain smoker, seemed to live on coffee, and, Bigelow sensed, something of an old-school Navy sexist, she felt she could count on him. He was, she quickly determined, a thoroughly professional seagoing officer.

“All right, Skipper, here’s what we have ahead of us,” Ashburn began as he consulted his notes. “We’re scheduled to rendezvous with the six South Korean minesweepers late tomorrow afternoon. Once we join up, we’ll be under the direction of Commodore Park, and we’ll move in a loose flotilla to the exercise area to be on station the following day at dawn. A South Korean auxiliary vessel will have laid a field of practice mines somewhere in the exercise area. They will be bottom mines, and we’ll have to find them.” He looked up and smiled. “It will be a chance for us to test our mine-hunting sonars and towed arrays while the Koreans watch. If neither we nor Defender can find them, then the Koreans will. As you know, the Korean sweeps have very primitive mine-hunting sonars, but Park will see they succeed where we fail.”

There were smiles around the table. Everyone there had some experience operating with the South Koreans, and they all knew they never failed — it was a matter of face. If the Americans could not locate the mines, they would readily admit it, and the failure would be a part of the lessons learned from the exercise. That was not the South Korean way. Both Park and his minesweeper captains knew the exact location of the mines and, if called upon, would conduct their own search and somehow manage to succeed, even with their dated gear. It was just the way it worked.

“How about clearing the mines?” O’Connor asked. “Hard to fake not being able to clear what you somehow managed to find.”

“That will be a little more difficult,” Ashburn replied, “but at some point in the exercise the practice mines will be declared neutralized and brought to the surface by command activation. But that’s really not our concern. Our job is to find, classify, and clear. Now, let’s get down to business.”

Ashburn highlighted the main stages and key execution points that were to take place over the course of the four-day exercise. Commodore Park, aboard one of the Korean minesweepers, would be the OTC, or officer in tactical command, but much of the exercise would be directed from Milwaukee by Ashburn and his watch teams in Milwaukee’s mission control center. Most of the physical activity would be in the mission bays, where her master chief bos’n and his crew would be deploying and retrieving their mine-hunting gear. It was dangerous, wet, cold work, especially at night. Chief Picard would serve as safety observer and tend to any injuries along the way. Seldom did a mine exercise go off without at least some minor injury, which was a major concern for Bigelow. It would be no less dangerous in the unpredictable waters of the Yellow Sea in November.

Jack O’Connor would have, at least in theory, the least to do during the mine exercise, or MINEX. His job was to run the ship and to ensure the underway steaming watches were manned and alert. He was responsible for the ship’s work and normal shipboard routine, but those tasks were largely in the care and management of the ship’s junior officers, chief petty officers, and senior petty officers. Bigelow herself had no additional duties, assigned or otherwise, except that of commanding officer. As such, she owned it all. Over the course of the next several days, she would doze fitfully for no more than a few hours each afternoon in her bridge chair, drink gallons of coffee, and wear out a path between the bridge and the mission control center. In this harried, sleep-deprived state, she would often be greeted by a passing sailor in a cramped internal passageway.

“Afternoon, ma’am,” or “Good day, Captain.”

And she would invariably answer with the sailor’s name. “Hey, Jones, how are you today,” or “Good morning, Smith. How’s everything down in the mission bay?”

It was during these times of increased operations tempo, when she had had little sleep and the weather had turned ugly, that she knew she really loved her job.