Women Report to Subs

The first female submariners finished their pipeline training in November and were due to begin reporting to their submarines just days after, keeping to the schedule announced in 2010 by the Navy that would have women officers begin serving at sea by the end of calendar year 2011.

Ninety-two new submarine officers, including the first 19 women, completed the 10-week submarine officer basic course – their last step in a training pipeline that included six months of Nuclear Power School and six months of Naval Nuclear Prototype Training as well.

Of those 19 female graduates, 10 were newly minted ensigns with no experience as officers at sea. The other nine were senior female supply officers, eight of whom will actually report to submarines while one was an alternate in case any fell out during training.

Eight other women are still in training and are expected to report aboard their subs by March 2012.

The number of women officers was carefully selected so they’d make up about 20 percent of the wardroom. That number, and the fact that there will be senior females aboard as well, was based on lessons learned integrating the surface fleet in the 1990s.

The women will serve on two ballistic-missile and two guided-missile submarines. The submarines Wyoming (SSBN 742) and Georgia (SSGN 729) are homeported at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Ga., and Ohio (SSGN 726) and Maine (SSBN 741) are based at Naval Base Kitsap in Bremerton, Wash.

Ninety-two new submarine officers, including the first 19 women, completed the 10-week submarine officer basic course – their last step in a training pipeline that included six months of Nuclear Power School and six months of Naval Nuclear Prototype Training as well.

The future of enlisted women on submarines is still being planned, as more extensive shipboard modifications will be needed to accommodate them.

 

Operations

Clearly the biggest and most publicized success in Navy operations goes to Naval Special Warfare operators who were credited with killing al Qaeda’s top leader, Osama bin Laden, in a highly secretive raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was hiding on May 2.

Though technically under the command of the joint U.S. Special Operations Command, sailors worldwide felt pride that it was their special warfare shipmates who actually pulled the trigger.

But the Navy’s role in that operation didn’t end with the terrorist leader’s death. His body was then flown to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson (CVN 70), deployed to the 5th Fleet area of operations, where he was prepared and buried at sea in accordance with Muslim law.

The burial at sea was necessary because no other country would accept his remains, according to the Defense Department.

Meanwhile, the Navy’s deployments continued at a regular pace, with the year starting off with 287 ships in the battle force – with 98 surface and 21 submarines and more than 45,000 sailors deployed. The year ended with 285 ships in service, with more than 47,000 sailors and more than 100 ships deployed or under way.

Both the Navy’s newest and oldest carriers had major milestones in 2011.

The newest carrier, George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), left on its historic first deployment May 10 and returned seven months later on Dec. 10. The combat phase of the cruise began June 18 and ended on Nov. 11, with the ship racking up more than 9,140 flight deck launches and recoveries. Of those, there were 2,210 combat sorties totaling 12,300 combat flight hours.

Meanwhile, the oldest ship in the fleet – the carrier Enterprise (CVN 65) – along with Carrier Air Wing One (CVW 1), left Norfolk, Va., Jan. 13, 2011, and returned on July 15 on what was scheduled to be her second-to-last cruise. The ship was entering her 50th year of service – marking the longest active service of any aircraft carrier.

This was her first deployment after completing a multi-year overhaul in 2010, which cost the Navy $662 million – 46 percent over budget and eight months longer than originally scheduled. For that price, the Navy plans to get one more deployment out of Enterprise before decommissioning her early in fiscal year 2013, and as 2011 ended, the ship was working up to that deployment.

Enterprise’s 2011 deployment saw the ship not in the Persian Gulf, but instead involved in an incident with Somali pirates – an event that ended in the deaths of four American citizens and four pirates and captured world attention.

By the time the cruise was over, the ship had helped capture some 75 Somali pirates, and its strike group’s surface ships also had launched missiles against the Libyan government, fired in support of NATO operations to help Libyan rebels.

The carrier Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) left the carrier rotation and entered Newport News Shipbuilding for a Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) in August 2009, a yard period slated to end in December 2012. The next ship slated for a mid-life carrier rework, the Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), left her homeport of Everett, Wash., on a round-the-world cruise before she would head to Newport News for her own RCOH.

In October, the Navy announced that it would forward deploy four Aegis ships in Rota, Spain, by 2015. The plan will see two ships arrive in 2014 and two more in 2015. Currently the United States has only one ship permanently assigned in the Mediterranean, the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility.

The Navy has yet to announce which ships will make the move, or if it will include both destroyers and cruisers. But officials say the move will allow the United States to keep these ships on station to provide missile defense for Europe.