Replies

I may be wrong but I think the Marines like squadrons on an aircraft carrier may not have been full timers meaning not part of ships company. IOW When the ship pulls in they leave. The Navy has done this for decades. So that would leave 938 onboard. Doing some basic match if they were doing 5 section duty. Meaning a fifth stays the night onboard in port or does a duty day on weekends. That means roughly 187 had duty that day which sounds right. Actually we did six section duty back in the late 70's and although at sea we had 5000 roughly in port that number dropped to 2500 or less because squadrons went to Oceana, Jacksonville, or even west coast to do maintenance on the aircraft.

Our typical duty section was less than 500 likely closer to 350. That is not the same thing as a work day. This was persons assigned to be onboard after work hours or weekends. I've done three section duty before while we were in the shipyards and it just plain stinked with the 12 hour work day for a year.

LIberty meaning time off is a necessity for ships crews especially ships company the ones permanently attached to the ship. We were lucky to be in port 2-3 months a year total. The cycle went like this Leave the shipyards after maintenance. Do about 9 months of readiness and qualification work ups 30 of which were off GITMO under simulated battle conditions meaning very little rest. After that we would deploy close to three months to somewhere like South America and then come back. About two months of in and out trips mostly out we would then deploy for the MED SEA for 6-7 months. Upon completion we returned and went back to the yards for repairs for 3 months. The 5th year required a year long extensive shipyard overhaul. That meant everyone but about 100 people or less were ordered off the ship as far as sleeping space went and only the duty section stayed the night. I spent many a night sleeping on the deck of min my shop and have the back aches to prove it.

I am assuming that the Bonhomme Richard after overhaul went to San Diego Naval Base likely from Bremerton, Washington. That is a guess. You would also have a bunch of greenhorns to train and training takes time and being at sea. When a ship goes in for overhaul about 90% of the crew with over a year left gets orders to another ship. When you consider that most firefighting duties are done by E-4 and below and in this case likely 75% of them came from different class ships etc you have chaos for a while. Of the men in my shop of about 16 only 4 I knew before the shipyards overhaul were still there when I got out. Training wise I was the senior NCO as an E-4 and myself and another E-4 had to train a new shop. The ship went out to sea for 3 days before I got out. Then it had to go back in the yards for 2 weeks of final tweaking.

BTW when we went to Europe or wherever we had to stay steaming so we usually did 3 or 4 section duty. You have to let the sailors have Liberty aka down time. At sea life goes like this 0700 begin work day 1800 knock off work day. 0000am begin mid watch until 0400 then try and hit the rack for about an hour before 0700 work day starts again. You stood two 4 hour watches a day in addition to your 7 days a week workdays at sea. At Sea is best described like the movie Groundhog Day. Every day same routine.

Retention levels in 1980 was so bad guys including myself turned down $18K to re-enlist. My rating was based on a 6/2 sea/shore duty station rotation meaning 6 years on a ship and 2 years on a Naval Base somewhere in the world.

.........Once again, you make my point. Lawyers have a famous saying in court which goes “So What!?” Respectfully, I would apply “So What?!” to the question of whether or not the Marines are considered part of the crew as I believe they are generally and absolutely for certain ARE in fire fighting scenarios. As I know you know, “every man on ship is considered a fire fighter and every man is trained at the fire fighting school”.

I’ve been on Liberty in ports all over the world and I know how important Liberty is. But, AGAIN, you make my point. The COMMAND BRASS are paid to take the heat of pissed off people and there simply were not enough people on board to protect that ship...........period. That’s someone’s (or multiple someone’s) fault. Historically, that person is the CNO. If a CNO can’t be held responsible for the loss of a 4 billion dollar warship then nothing else he does matters.

All the stats you quote are good ones and germane to the argument but they ignore the OVERARCHING fact that regardless of what may be good reasons (or excuses) the ship was UNDERSTAFFED which was a major contributing factor to the loss of the ship to stupidity of the BRASS not the enemy.