Bunker Hill (CG 52) - Naval Cruise Book

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' Not The Start Of War Early morning Tomahawk launch puts Bunker Hill in the tray By William H. McMichael NavyTimes staff writer 3 1 Mar 2003 Issue ABOARD THE USS BUNKER HILL (CG 52) - The ship ' s bow is barely visible as fog shrouds the Persian Gulf and mutes a nearly full moon. Everything is a dull gray. The seas are calm. It is quiet. Inside the darkened bridge of the cruiser Bunker Hill, officers and sailors are softly illuminated by the faint green and orange lights of radar screens and ke ypads and the low, tlat ambient light from outside. It is 3 a.m. Persian Gulf Time, March 20. A half-hour earlier, the operations order to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets inside Iraq was received in the ship ' s subdued yet futuristic command information center, one deck below the bridge. The Bunker Hill is part of a massive combat force, assembled over recent months in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and Kuwait, on the verge of launching an attack to unseat Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and destroy his stores of banned weapons. Forty-six hours before. President Bush issued a two-day ultimatum to Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq or face the consequences. The time is almost up. The circular radar screen is a mass of blips. It is a busy night in the northeastern corner of the Persian Gulf Most of the blips are amphibious ships under the protective electronic umbrella of Bunker Hill ' s array of sensors. Others defend against the threat of mines. A group of slender blips only a few miles distant represents local fishing dhow s: crew members call the daily assemblage Dhow City. The voices on the bridge are calm and assured, but hushed. We ' re gonna head north, Lt. Cmdr. Curtis Goodnight, the ship ' s executive officer, says softly to tonight ' s officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Casey Haas. His voice carries no hint of the important mission little more than two hours away and stands in stark contrast to the ear-splitting roars to come. The quiet also masks the nerves. My heart is beating a little more quickly than normal, whispers Haas. The waiting is the hardest part. Her voice, however, is calm. Matter-of-fact, dispassionate voices blurt out of radio speakers here and there on the bridge, issuing commands and situation reports. Some are American, some British, some male, some female. A voice singing in Arabic crackles out of a mariner ' s channel. The Bu nker Hill is in a holding pattern. Hurry up and wait. Everyone has been waiting for this moment, when the surface warships and submarines would be called upon to launch what military officials had described as an overwhelming opening salvo that would signal the start of the second Persian Gulf War. They haven ' t served us our targets yet, Goodnight says. It ' ll come in the form of a coded message for the entire strike package. The targeting message - Indigo - will detail assignments for the entire strike. Each of the ships expected to fire will pick out its part. Down in the combat information center, or CIC, enlisted engagement planners seated behind a drawn black curtain will load the infomiation into each missile identified by the shooter - the young sailor who will, at the order, push the execute icon on his screen and fire each missile. The moon makes an appearance, briefly lighting the wave tops and brightening the room slightly. Goodnight, a tall man, rocks gently back and forth, shifting his weight as he looks about the room. He ' ll stay on the bridge while the ship ' s commanding officer, Capt. Faris T. Farwell, remains below in the CIC, seated at the center of a console that faces four large screens showing various scale depictions of Iraq and the surrounding region. Farwell watches everything, ensuring the safety of operations. When the time comes, he ' ll enable the launching system and issue the order to fire. When Indigo anives and the Tomahawk specialists program the missiles, the ship ' s officers plan a navigational track to get the ship into proper position to fire those specific missions. They also must consider wind speed and other variables. Haas passes an order. Set restrictive maneuvering. she says in a raised voice. Another voice cuts in on an internal circuit. Bridge, TAO, says Chief Warrant Officer 4 Joe Salgado, the tactical action officer down in the CIC with Farwell. We don ' t have permission to launch yet. The sky darkens again. Haas looks out the window, playing with a lock of her hair. Ensign Core Rank, the conning officer, stands silently, hands in pockets. Ensign Grey Pfarr leans forward on the window ledge, holding a radio microphone to his lips. The chaplain, Lt. Daniel Owens, enters the bridge and stops to briefly chat with the watch standers. How ya doin ? he asks here and there, doing a quick check on everyone. At 4:59 a.m., Farwell ' s voice breaks the silence, and all hands on the bridge stop to listen. On Sept. 1 1th, the commander in chief. President Bush, told the nation, ' We will not falter. We will not tire.. We will not fail, ' he says in a firm voice. Gentlemen, you have never faltered. You are never tired. And we certainl) ' will not fail in Enduring Freedom. God bless you. This is Bunker Hill. God bless America. In approximately 10 mics [minutes], we ' ll have strike tasking and missiles away. That is all. Suddenly, the bridge comes alive. The voices rise in volume. Commands become more crisp. The room is suddenly electric. The ship is turned to 90 degrees and slows to a crawl. Time now passes quickly. It is 10 minutes, five minutes, one minute to launch. Thirty seconds to launch. Haas says. Then. Salgado ' s voice is broadcast from the CIC below: Executing Plan 1. Plan 1 coming out of fore 51. to be followed by aft 18. Seconds later, the bridge is rocked by the explosion of a rocket engine at full thrust and bathed in a white-hot light. Fifteen seconds later, as the first soars upward and begins curling through the morning twilight toward the north, the aft missile launches with a similar flash and roar. In what seems like only seconds, a second pair blasts skyward, the whoosh of the burning rockets overwhelming the senses. On the water below, the brilliant trails of flame create parallel lines of bright green as the water is briefl) lit. In the distance, the roar fading, the missiles make a popping sound as. one-by-one. their boosters fall off into the gulf, and the missiles shift into cruise mode before disappearing from sight. After each launch, spotters on the port bridge wing call out. Happy trails forward! or Happy trails aft! to inform the bridge and. subsequently. Farwell. that the missiles have in fact safely left the tubes and are on their way. The first launch has come one hour and 15 minutes after the expiration of Bush ' s deadline. Behind the bridge on the open 0-3 deck, crew members not involved with the launch and gathered to watch the launches, many carrying digital video cameras, briefly cheer, then fall silent. As the Bunker Hill rapidly repositions for the next launches, daybreak begins. On the subsequent 1 1 launches, observers can see the long black plume of smoke that trails behind the white exhaust flame of the missiles. Asked if the launch mission had gone well. Farwell. walking up from the CIC. does not hesitate. Just like it was supposed to. right? Inside the ship ' s wardroom, in a televised address at 6:15 a.m. local time. President Bush calls the strikes. The early stages of what will be a long, broad campaign. Then, a surprise: a CNN report claims the strikes weren ' t the actual start of the war, but a decapitation strike aimed at Saddam Hussein and senior Iraqi leadership. This is not the beginning of the war. the report quotes offlcial sources as saying. Later, the crew learns its launches were part of a 42-missile strike fired by ships and submarines in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. And for the Bunker Hill, the war has begun.

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The Crew