Summertime Submarine Fun !!

In the summer of 2006 I contacted the USS Augusta for the first time in a couple of decades or so. I found an email address for the CO Mr. Childs and one for the XO Mr. Turk, and a third for the COB MC Greaney. It turned out that the guys were all "unavailable" at the time I sent those initial emails. But Mrs. Turk sent me an email reply and I had officially re-established a connection with the boat.

My first trek back to SUBASE NLON was uneventful because the closest I got to lower base was the main gate. I got to talk with the Command Duty Officer who was a lady Senior Chief... but she said the boat did not have a phone because they had just pulled in or some unlikely version of the story. So I took my kids to the Nautilus Museum instead. I finally did get my kids onboard the USS Augusta... one alumni reunion and one submarine decommissioning later. For the rest of my life I will be grateful we had the chance.

So for some summertime fun I would highly recommend the USS Nautilus Museum. It is absolutely the best time of year in my humble opinion because the air whipping around down on the waterfront is only pleasant for 2 months a year. The rest of the time the air is cold. I'll write more about the 571 boat in the next post.

My last visit to the 10 Boat

On the weekend of April 12th 2008 I was fortunate enough to visit the USS Augusta with my son Johnny and daughter Kimi. My friend Rob Jeffer went with us for the trip from NJ to Virginia. Rob has endured almost 20 years of submarine stories from me so it was good he could get onboard to put some of the images together with some of the stories.

SC Brimley was acting COB and he helped us out with the base access. COB MC Agnew made arrangements for me the week before. Mr. Rossi gave us a grand tour on Saturday. Interestingly enough he and all 4 of the boarding party happened to be New Jersey natives.

As the boat had made its final sea voyage under it's own power, it had red tags all over the place. The general look was similar to the way the boat looked before we went to sea for the first time. If was of course a little sad to see the boat like that but really like my daughter's favorite kid movie The Lion King, it's all about the cycle of life. Like people and animals... submarines in a way are born, and they live, and then they die. The core is getting ripped out in the next few weeks and I guess it is like a heart transplant. The USS Augusta is moving on so a new Virginia class boat can be born. I am so glad I was able to get my children onboard one time. As always everyone on the crew was AJ Squared Away and glad to help in any way. As we left we were treated to one of the finest Navy sunsets I have ever seen except out at sea.

Final Hour for USS Augusta

I talked with the COB Pat Agnew yesterday for a half hour. The USS Augusta has completed it's last patrol and it's ready to go to the yards later this month. Anyone from the Alumni crew wanting a final visit please contact MAL and I will forward your request to Master Chief Agnew on the boat. I'm going to visit the boat one more time and I'm bringing my kids this time.

I have not been on the base at Norfolk myself since 1982. I was stationed at Dam Neck back then and I drove my car onto the base and parked right on the pier that the USS Nimitz was tied to. I got onboard the Nimitz a couple times that way... and I was lucky to not get completely lost for days below decks. Lots to see and do at the biggest US Navy base INCONUS.

Well anyway Pat told me the boat is on a good pier and a lot of the crew has already transferred off. The guys onboard now are ready for the hard hat area. The US Navy Historian is about to go onboard and start removing artifacts.

Billion Dollar Refit for the Big Boy USS Georgia SSBN 729

When the USS Augusta was still in the yards at "EB" we shared building 80 with another crew and it was a Trident boat. I think it might have been the Henry M. Jackson (SSBN 730) but I can't remember. If someone could help with a comment that would be great. Just before we left building 80 for good I think there was a 3rd crew in there also. The USS Georgia was still at EB because there were only 4 Tridents in the water when we were commissioned and they were the 4th. The closest I ever got to going inside one was on a weekend afternoon when the 10 boat was down in the graving dock I walked on top of whatever Trident was at EB. It seemed like the Empire State Building laying on it's side. Nuclear submarine USS Georgia returns to duty at Ga. naval base
By RUSS BYNUM - AP Military Writer --

KINGS BAY NAVAL SUBMARINE BASE, Ga. --
More than 2,000 Navy sailors and dignitaries Friday celebrated the return to duty of the USS Georgia, the last of four mammoth submarines converted from nuclear-armed deterrents to conventional stealth weapons.

Overhauling the Georgia cost $1 billion and took two years at the Navy's shipyard in Norfolk, Va. The 560-foot sub's Trident nuclear missiles were replaced with an arsenal of Tomahawk cruise missiles and room to carry a platoon of special forces troops undetected into enemy territory.

"When we were in the shipyard the ship's motto was, 'Let's bring Georgia home,'" said Capt. Brian McIlvaine, the sub's commanding officer. "Now our goal is let's get Georgia to the fight."

Commissioned in 1984, the Georgia served for 20 years as a Cold War deterrent that lurked at sea ready, if necessary, to launch its nuclear weapons.

Now it's been outfitted for stealth missions in the war on terrorism. The sub carries 154 conventional cruise missiles. It also sports a built-in war room, extra bunks and special airlocks for launching elite Navy SEALS on clandestine missions.

Though nearly the length of two football fields, the Georgia's black hull was designed to dodge radar and its mechanical innards are made to absorb sound vibrations to evade sonar detection.

"Soon the Georgia will deliver the stealth, precision and flexibility that is in high demand from our military commanders," said Vice Adm. John J. Donnelly, commander of the Navy's submarine force.

The Georgia is the second of the converted submarines to be stationed at Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base, the only base for naval nuclear subs on the east coast. The other, the USS Florida, arrived in 2006. Their two sister submarines, the Ohio and Michigan, are stationed in Bangor, Wash.

However, the Georgia is the only vessel in the Navy to be based in its home state, a matter of pride for boosters here. Gov. Sonny Perdue presented the sub's 166-man crew with a Georgia state flag that traveled through each of the state's 159 counties before arriving for the Friday ceremony.

Perdue said he got to spend a night aboard the USS Florida last year, which he described as "awesome." But the former University of Georgia football player couldn't help taking a dig at the rival state.

"Much as I enjoyed my trip on the Florida, I'm looking forward to a ride on the USS Georgia with a new and improved color scheme," Perdue said.

McIlvaine said the Georgia is not quite ready to deploy yet. Its crew will spend months installing upgraded sonar and weapons control systems on the submarine. After that, the retooled Georgia should deploy on its first mission in early 2009.

Veterans take a look at proposed Amnesty Bill

This was forwarded to me from one of my friends from the Augusta and another friend from another boat. As Navy Veterans, we worked hard for this nation. I live in Bergen County New Jersey and there are illegal aliens all over the place working without paying taxes taking jobs that legal Americans could be doing. Our police in Bergen County make over $100,000 per year EACH after about 5 years on the job and many of them work a 3 day work week. They also have over the top benefits, training, and vacations. They will not arrest illegal aliens. I have worked for a number of MASTER CHIEFS that could turn this situation around in a matter of minutes. Take a look at this video and pass it around.

Another submarine spy from China (with Love)

The big espionage game is now with the mainland Chinese. They have thousands of computer hackers gleening every bit of sensitive data they can find on US based websites to steal or manipulate. You can build any component in the world in China and then race the bastards you paid to your own market no matter what kind of agreements you put in the contract. You will find alternate versions of the products you designed selling cheaper in your own markets because of so called "Chinese Law". That is a joke... there is no such thing as Chinese Law. Except that it allows chinese citizens to steal western inventions and intellectual property. Sure you can sue in a chinese court. Pfizer had to sue to stop the illegal manufacture of generic Viagra in China and it took many years and millions and millions of dollars. The absolute worst pollution in the world is probably in China and they are building several water pipes to feed Beijing... one of them had to be 900 miles long to find clean water. Chinese greed is absolute and legendary. In order to be citizens of the real world China will have to learn the lessons that their incredible greed has a price and that cost is going to be very very high.

Until then fellow submariners, keep designating Chinese warships as threat contacts and light 'em up!!!!

Chinese-Born Engineer Convicted of Conspiracy Gets 24 1/2 Years in Prison Last Edited: Tuesday, 25 Mar 2008, 2:43 AM GMT Created: Monday, 24 Mar 2008, 7:47 PM GMT

03/24/2008 --

A Chinese-born engineer convicted of conspiracy to export U.S. defense technology to China was sentenced Monday to 24 1/2 years in federal prison by a judge who said the defendant betrayed his adopted country.

Chi Mak, 67, a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked on naval propulsion systems, was also convicted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, attempting to violate export control laws and making false statements to the FBI.

Federal prosecutors asked for 30 years, while Mak's defense team proposed 10 years.

Mak asked U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney for leniency before sentencing. Four of Mak's relatives, including his wife, pleaded guilty last year to related offenses in exchange for leniency.

"I don't know so much about the law, but I feel I never intend to violate any law at all. I never intend to hurt my country. I love this country. I don't believe I hurt this country," Mak told the judge. "The truth is not like the one the prosecutor says. I still hope for justice."

The judge said Mak lied on immigration and government security clearance forms and perjured himself on the witness stand.

"I do believe a high-end sentence is appropriate here. Mr. Mak sadly, I believe, betrayed the United States. ... I really don't know how much damage he's done to us," Carney said.

"He's a very humble man, a very warm man and he wants to be helpful," the judge said, referencing letters of support from Mak's friends and former colleagues and friends. "But it's those traits and that persona that allowed him to pass information to the People's Republic of China."

Mak, who worked for Anaheim-based naval defense contractor Power Paragon, was arrested in late 2005 after FBI agents stopped his brother and sister-in-law as they boarded a flight to Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China.

Investigators said they found three encrypted CDs in the couple's luggage that contained documents on a submarine propulsion system, a solid-state power switch for ships and a PowerPoint presentation on the future of power electronics.

During a monthlong trial last year, Mak's attorneys argued that the information he gathered was not classified and was often made public at industry conferences that were attended by engineers from all over the world, including China. They also argued that the information that Mak was accused of trying to pass to China was outdated and so far from being a functional technology that China could have done little with it.

Mak's attorney, Ronald Kaye, said he would file an appeal within 10 days. He accused prosecutors of being overly harsh with his client to make a point to the international espionage community and to China.

"We believe that history will prove the facts of this case differently," Kaye said outside court. "They essentially have sentenced him as if he's a trophy rather than a human being."

Mak, who has been in custody since his arrest, was allowed to hug his attorneys before being returned to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. Kaye asked that he be placed in a minimum security prison in Lompoc, Calif., and the court agreed to recommend that to federal prison officials.

Mak's wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu, pleaded guilty last year on the eve of her trial to one count of acting as a foreign agent without registering with the U.S. government. She is serving three years in federal prison and will be deported upon release.

His brother, Tai Mak, pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to violate export control laws in exchange for a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Tai Mak's wife, Fuk Li, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the violation of export control laws and received three years of probation.

Yui "Billy" Mak, the son of Tai Mak and Fuk Li, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the violation of export control laws and was sentenced to time already served. The three will also be deported.

National Anthem at Texas Tech

This has been going around the internet and it is worth having a listen to. These 5 young ladies sang the National Anthem before a Texas Tech game on February 9, 2008. It has almost 4 million views on You Tube already.

Remembering our sister ship - SSN 709

Our sister ship in the yards was the 709 boat - USS Hyman Rickover. I remember the day Rickover went to "E.B." to go onboard his namesake boat. I think it was before they went on initial seatrials. He had enlisted guys from the crew standing around holding mattresses to supposedly block photographers from taking his picture. Since there were no photographers allowed in the shipyard I thought the whole thing was pretty strange. I remember seeing a black limo leaving the piers as I was walking up to Building 80 from the graving dock... which turned out to be Rickover himself - the father of the Nuclear Navy. I knew one of the QMs on the 709 and he told me about the mattresses thing.

I heard Rickover went ballistic when they announced they were naming a 688 after him because he thought he deserved a carrier to be named after him. I have no idea if that is true but what I do know is that after Rickover drove the La Jolla into the sea floor doing a crash back on seatrials, Reagan pulled him right out of active participation with seatrials. We had 3 Plankowners on the USS Augusta that were also Plankowners on the La Jolla and they were there. I believe Rickover commanded initial seatrials on every submarine from the Nautilus to the La Jolla. So Ronald Reagan brought Hyman to the White House and retired him on the spot... as nicely as he could. Rickover had an ego as big as a mountain and only the President could deflate him like that.

My father was a US Navy Officer having graduated from Fort Schuyler Maritime Academy in the Bronx. I think my father was in the class of 1956. He told me that Rickover graduated from the US Naval Academy in the class of '23 [correction - should have been 1922]. He said in the original yearbook from 1922 [corrected] there was a black page in the yearbook and it was perforated and in the middle of the page was a picture of Rickover. So the first thing most guys in the class did when they got their yearbooks was to tear the page out.

The fact of the matter remains that despite being one of the biggest jerks in the history of earth, it was because of Rickover's genius, his attention to detail, and his standards particularly with safety and training that the US never had a major nuclear disaster. The nation and the world will always owe him for taking a new and potentially dangerous technology and making it work - as safely as possible. In my humble opinion he did not deserve the carrier because he was socially retarded. He commanded tremendous respect because he was very smart and very powerful but not because he was respected as a man you would care to know or as a leader. Maybe it took that kind of personality to make nuclear power safe. The 688 class was his baby from start to finish and he should have been as honored to serve as a namesake as we were to serve as crew members.

Navy Humor provided by Joyce Shortnacy

I remember morning muster in the control room. Chief Hurley would always be there early. I would make it about a minute early or less. And the Grimmer would always be the last guy to walk in and he'd be smoking and drinking his coffee at the same time. There was rarely a day that Michael Grimm did NOT spill his coffee from the crews mess, up the ladder in the Nav Ctr and all the way across control to the periscopes. I would have thought Grimm had what it took to make Chief someday but he retired from the Navy to be promoted to civilian like I did. We called coffee stains on decks "Chief Trails" but in the case of QM morning muster it was simply evidence that the Grimmer was aboard and ready for action.

Interesting story on the USS Grunion

My first QM Chief Ed Bruette sends me great submarine articles. Here is a picture of Ed above. This is one of those stories that can be felt personally by every man that has ever stepped foot onboard the Augusta or any submarine really. It brings to mind the phrase "Except by the grace of God, there go I". This boat was very similar to the WWII submarine USS Ling. We are fortunate to have the Ling nearby in Hackensack NJ. My kids love it because you can sound all the alarms in the control room. I used to work on Unalaska Island in the Aleuts almost a neighbor to the final resting place of the Grunion.






By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY
BETHESDA, Md. — Mary Bentz is sitting at her kitchen table, poring over old photographs of World War II sailors.

She has never met any of the men, but she calls them "my kids." "Look at these faces," she says. "They're frozen in time."

The 70 men she now calls family all died when the USS Grunion, a submarine on its maiden voyage, went down in waters off the coast of Alaska in late July 1942. Her uncle, Carmine Parziale of Weedville, Pa., was on board.

For 65 years, the Grunion and its crew were missing. The ship finally was found last August, thanks to the submarine commander's three sons, who financed an expedition to the site near the Aleutian island of Kiska where it was believed the sub had disappeared.

A mini-sub equipped with cameras and video equipment spotted the remains on a slope 3,000 feet down in the Bering Sea.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Detroit Michigan Pennsylvania Kentucky World War II North Alaska Lord Rings Mary Des Moines Register Bering Sea Boston Scientific Byron Museum of Science Aleutian Kiska Nanook USS Grunion America Legion Bentz John Abele

The story is part mystery (Why did the sub go down?), part genealogical search (Who were these rakish-looking men?), but mostly it's a love story. A labor-of-love story.

The Grunion's tale will be retold May 1 in a seminar at Boston's Museum of Science.

"I guess in a sense it's a good excuse to bring everything we've collected into one spot," says John Abele, whose father, Mannert (Jim), was the commander of the Grunion and disappeared with the sub when John was 5.

"Part of the day will be a presentation of what we have learned, and part of it will be a display of the letters, thousands of e-mails, photos. And we have about three hours of high-definition video."

The Grunion project (ussgrunion.com) "has taken on a life of its own," he says.

The sub ladies

Much of the credit can be given to a few women. Bentz and two others have been on a mission to answer as many questions pertaining to the Grunion as they can.

Affectionately dubbed the "sub ladies," they've spent the good part of the past two years tracking down families of the sailors.

(Prophetically, the day the Grunion's twisted remains were spotted, the last unfound family of a Grunion sailor was tracked down in Detroit.)

"They usually think you're a bill collector or trying to solicit funds for something or other," says Vickie Rodgers of Mayfield, Ky., one of the "sub ladies." Her great-uncle, Merritt Graham, went down with the Grunion.

"Then they're usually shocked. 'How did you find me?' And then it turns to elation. And every once in a while, a family doesn't even know they're related to that person. … But we all consider ourselves a family now."

Even so, Rodgers has never met Bentz or Rhonda Raye, who by some accounts is the original "sub lady."

"She's my best friend, and we've never met," says Rodgers of Raye. "I bet we'd e-mail 200 times a day. And I feel like I know a lot of these men, too. I'm the mother of five, so I feel like a mother to them."

Raye thinks credit should go elsewhere. "Actually you should say Susan Abele (wife of Bruce Abele, another son of the Grunion's commander) was the first sub lady, since later we determined she was the one who found an old genealogy post of mine on Paul Banes. That's how they found me," says Raye, great-niece of Paul Edward Banes, who served aboard the Grunion.

"The thing is, Vickie, Mary and I all have various ways of going about the search, and it is that combination that made this a success."

Everyone agrees the project was a trial-and-error thing.

"We were just turning over rocks," Rodgers says. "There was no system or method. Whatever idea we came up with, we ran with it."

The group posted notices at VFW and America Legion halls. Bentz has gone on radio talk shows. That's how she tracked down the family of Byron "Buck" Traviss, the last to be found.

His first cousin by marriage, Barbara Larish of Dearborn, Mich., was putting away groceries when she heard Bentz talking about the Grunion search on the radio. She made contact with Bentz, and the list was complete.

Rodgers is most impressed by the Abele family, and the effort they've put in.

"I felt the little I have done was the least I could do compared to what they've done," she says. "I was hoping the Grunion would be found in 2007, but as I said to Bruce Abele once, even if it isn't, the Grunion is found in all the stories of these men and their families, and we're thankful we have the website to share what we can."

John Abele, a co-founder of Boston Scientific, called the quest to find the sub a "kind of a Nanook of the North meets Lord of the Rings.… It has a very eerie quality to it."

He brought back vials of seawater from the site and sent them to all 70 families.

Phyllis Boo, sister-in-law of Grunion sailor Robert Francis Boo, told the Des Moines Register the vial was "humbling."

"Humbling" is the same word John Abele used to describe how it felt to find his father's vessel.

"In one sense, the journey is complete," he says. "We found a submarine, confirmed it's the Grunion, found relatives of all the crew."

But what he likes most is how it was done.

"It's amateurish but entrepreneurial. A collection of people who bring all sorts of things to this. … What we're trying to do is harness that collective intelligence and produce an understanding. It's a multi-themed story."

The Abeles assembled seven Grunion families, about 30 people, last fall in Newton, Mass.

"It was very interesting," John Abele says. "Not sure what the best word is to describe it. These aren't relatives, obviously we don't know any of these people, but it was like finding a family relative you didn't know you had. There was instant bonding. We realized we were all part of a family."

In need of closure

And since the Grunion just disappeared, no one had a proper funeral, let alone an obituary in the local newspaper.

(Many of the widows never remarried, hoping their lost husbands might walk through the door one day. One carried her husband's letters in her apron for years, often going down to the train station waiting for him to return. Three of the widows are still living.)

So Bentz's work is not done. She has taken the story one step further. Her days are now spent calling newspapers, urging them to tell the story from the "local boy" angle.

She works from a loose-leaf notebook in which she lists the newspapers she has called, editor's name and whether they've run a story yet. She calls it an "eight-hour-a-day" job.

Bentz is miffed at certain papers that haven't, or worse, refused, to run stories.

"I don't have a clue what they're thinking," she says.

Her goal is for each of the 70 sailors to have a proper obit or story in their hometown newspaper. Thirty have been documented so far. She has 40 more to go.

"There's so much still to do and share. But once someone has an obituary, it makes it real," she says. "It closes the door, and when it's real, you can let them rest."
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