SAMUEL G. TOOMA, AUTHOR
Sam's Blog |
CHAPTER 4 (CONT'D). MIRACLES12/8/2020 This is the second of the miracle stories that I am posting. This miracle in my life greatly affected the direction of my professional career as an oceanographer for the navy. As you read this account, watch for things 'that just so happened', people acting different than most people would act, etc. To me, the odds of things happening as they did in this event in my life are astronomical. I think you will agree with me. DAVIS STRAIT MIRACLE (1976). I have had several miracles occur in my life which changed the direction of my career and enhanced it in unbelievable ways. This event is probably the one that changed my career and my life the most. Again, this miracle is filled with sub-miracles. By this I mean that people acted in ways that are contrary to what is normally done, that amazing “coincidences” occurred, and that several situations fell into place at exactly the right time. Look for these things as you read my narrative. The year was 1976, I was still working in arctic research, and we had just moved from the Washington, D.C. area down to the Louisiana/Mississippi gulf coast near New Orleans. I remember sitting at my desk working on a paper of the northern Davis Strait (Figure 15 below). The issue of this particular research was a unique phenomenon which exists in the narrow strait area separating the Lincoln Sea to the north and Baffin Bay to the south. This small area had what we call a recurring polynya. Polynya is a Russian term for open water. The open water/free of ice area that I was studying exists all year round, even in the dead of winter. As I said, I was sitting at my desk studying the data when the phone rang. I received a call that changed my professional career and my life. The caller was Claude Coffey. Claude was my first supervisor when I began working for the Naval Oceanographic Office in 1963. . FIGURE 15. LANDSAT Satellite Image of Open Water Area. Water is Dark; Ice is Light. (SEE FIGURE 15 BELOW) I had not heard from Claude for several years, and I was surprised to hear his voice. Claude told me that he had just returned from Charleston, S.C. where he had met with staff members of the Commander of Mine Warfare Command (COMINEWARCOM). The admiral of COMINEWARCOM is the head of all navy mine operations, including mine countermeasures (MCM) and the development and utilization of offensive mine systems. Claude told me that the staff there had asked him several questions about the arctic ice conditions in Baffin Bay, including ice bergs, ice pack movement, and seasonal variations of these parameters. Knowing Claude’s experience and knowledge of these things, I knew he could have given them answers that would have satisfied them, thereby making himself look good. Instead, he told them that he knew someone who could answer their questions better than he could. He told them that he would contact that person and have him call them as soon as he returned home. Hence, the call to me. I often considered how many people would have done such a thing? Professional jealousy normally motivates people to try to take the glory and make themselves look good. Claude did not do that on this occasion. I told Claude that I would certainly contact COMINEWARCOM and see if I could help them in any way. He gave me the number of the operations officer, Commander Powell, of COMINEWARCOM, and I called him. CDR Powell seemed very pleased that I had contacted him so quickly. He immediately asked that I call him back on a secure phone so we could talk about classified issues, which I did. CDR Powell explained that COMINEWARCOM was in the process of developing plans for possible deployment of minefields in Baffin Bay in order to counter Soviet submarines entering the North Atlantic from that area. The big concerns were environmental. Would the sea ice prevent deployment of the minefield; would ice bergs sweep away the mines which were moored from the bottom; would ambient conditions interfere with the detection capabilities of the mine’s sensors; etc. I told him that I “just so happened” to be doing research in that area, and that I may be able to help them. CDR Powell asked me how soon could I come to Charleston and work with them. I said that I could be there the following week. CDR Powell seemed pleased, even relieved. I went to the naval base in Charleston where COMINEWARCOM was based. I met with the minefield planners and assessed the situation. One of the major issues was cost. The mines the US Navy uses are not like the round, floating mines we see in WWII movies with John Wayne pushing them away with long boat hooks. They are very sophisticated devices that are anchored to the sea floor and moored to the appropriate water depth via a cable. Each mine system contains an encapsulated torpedo and has multiple sensors to detect a submarine. They can differentiate between a submarine, a surface ship, and a whale. Each mine costs about a million dollars (a guess here). So, the minefield planners want to minimize the number of mines needed to get the job done at the lowest cost. Another issue is deployment of the mines. Mines can be deployed in 3 ways: by surface ship (slow and not covert); by aircraft (fastest and done by assets that are more readily available); and by submarine (slow and difficult to commit for mine warfare). Obviously, the arctic environment complicates the deployment issue considerably. After a day of evaluating the situation and providing a general description of the environmental conditions in Baffin Bay, a potential solution to their problems popped into my mind. You may have been wondering why I included a discussion of the recurring polynya at the beginning of this story. Here’s why I did this. In a nutshell, I asked them if they would consider developing a minefield plan farther north (See Figure 16 for a LANDSAT image of Baffin Bay area in winter). They asked, “Wouldn’t environmental conditions be worse?” I gave them a quick briefing on the constricted area farther north where the water was ice free all year round, even in winter. I showed them satellite infrared images taken in the dead of winter which showed that this area was indeed ice free even when farther south Baffin Bay was covered with ice. In this open water area, mines could be deployed by aircraft and just as importantly, significantly fewer mines would be needed. In addition, the area was a natural “choke point” and submarines would be forced into the lethal area of a minefield. The staff became extremely excited. CDR Powell said that the admiral was in Washington, D.C. at that time, and he said that I had to FIGURE 16. LANDSAT Infrared Image of Ice Dam In Winter. (SEE FIGURE 16 BELOW) come back and brief him. He told me when the admiral would be back in Charleston, and he asked if I could come back then. When I returned to my office in Mississippi, I briefed my supervisor, Dr. Huon Li, on what had taken place in Charleston. Soon thereafter, I was called to a meeting with Dr. Li and the technical director of my lab (the Naval Ocean Research and Development Activity ((NORDA)), Dr. Ralph Goodman. I was told that there was no way that a low-level GS 12 (me) was going to brief an admiral alone. Soon, a team was formed to develop the briefing for the admiral. The team consisted of myself, Dr. Li, Dr. Goodman, Dr. Al Pressman, and the Commanding Officer of NORDA, CDR Lovnichek (sic). Dr. Pressman was the top remote sensing expert at NORDA. We developed a plan to put the briefing together and have several “dry runs” of the brief to be sure it was airtight and that I could do the job. This all had to be done in a few days because the time had already been set to visit the admiral the following week. I quickly put the briefing together, and the first dry run was set up 2 days after our initial meeting. I gave the dry run talk, and they fired many questions at me to see how I would handle a tough, perhaps hostile group of people. I felt that this first dry run went very well. As I was gathering my slide materials at one end of the conference table, I overheard Dr. Goodman say to Dr. Pressman “Al, you have done a good job putting this all together in such a short time”. I was shocked by what Al said to Ralph. He said, ”I didn’t do anything. Sam did it all”. As with Claude Coffey, once again, someone did not take credit for something when they could have. In truth, Al Pressman did help me considerably in how I should discuss the various satellite images that I would be showing. Yet, he gave all the credit to me. When we went to Charleston a few days later, I felt like a gofer. I was with my boss, my boss’s boss (Dr. Pressman), and the technical director (Dr. Goodman) and the commanding officer of NORDA. I was carrying their briefcases. Well, the briefing to the admiral and his staff went extremely well. When I completed my talk, the admiral (ADM Roy Hoffman) said things such as: "this is exactly what we need; we can use fewer mines; we can save money; we can deploy a minefield at any time of the year; we can use aircraft operating out of Thule air base”; etc. As I said, our visit to COMINEWARCOM was a resounding success. Also, of significant importance, we had established a working relationship with a major warfare area of the navy, Mine Warfare. In summary, my mind is boggled by how this whole episode turned out and came together. Two gentlemen, Mr. Coffey and Dr. Pressman refused to take credit for things that they had every right to do. Instead, they passed the credit to me. I just so happened to be studying an extremely small area of the world that would come into play and solve a sticky problem the navy was trying to solve. What are the odds of this? Even the fact that the admiral just so happened to be out-of-town when I was there is an extremely important “coincidence” that impacted how all this turned out. If I had seen the admiral during my initial visit to COMINEWARCOM, the whole re-visit to Charleston with all my superiors would have not occurred. A very important part of this event is what happened soon after we went to Charleston to brief ADM Hoffman. The paragraphs that follow attempt to describe what happened and how my career suddenly began to take off. AFTERMATH OF THE COMINEWARCOM VISIT (1976-1978). About a week after we returned to our lab in Mississippi, I was sitting in my office and Ralph Goodman walked in. Remember, Ralph was the technical director of NORDA, and here he was walking into my humble office. He said that he was really impressed with what happened at COMINEWARCOM. I thanked him. Then he told me that he had just been tasked by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy to evaluate the exploratory development research program of the navy. This was a huge undertaking that had been put on Ralph. I was wondering why he came into my office to tell me this. He then dropped the bomb on me. He wanted me to help him with this daunting task. I had no earthly idea of how I could possibly help him with this. I asked him how could I help? He told me that he was going to the various research labs of the navy and be briefed on their exploratory development research programs. He would then make his evaluation and provide the assistant secretary a written report. He said that he wanted my opinions because my inexperience in these areas of research could provide valuable insights to him that he might miss. He also liked the writing of the technical papers I had written. I said that I was interested, but I had to ask my supervisor, Dr. Li, for permission. Ralph told me not to worry about that because he had already talked to Dr. Li. I guess Ralph had made up his mind. Over the next year or so, Ralph and I travelled all over the country on this project. Soon after we began, he told me that I shouldn’t be a GS 12 anymore. Soon thereafter, I was promoted to a GS 13. After this mission was completed, Ralph initiated the process to promote me again, and soon, I was a GM 14. (GS stands for General (or Government) Servant, and GM for general manager; See Appendix C for equivalent civilian and US Navy ranks. I present Appendix C later in my memoirs). Talk about miracles! When I reflect on how my career changed from the phone call from Claude Coffey to when Dr. Goodman walked into my office (all in about 5 weeks of my life), I am awestruck. God can do amazing things. FIGURE 15. LANDSAT SATELLITE IMAGE OF OPEN WATER. WATER IS DARK; ICE IS LIGHT. FIGURE 16. LANDSAT INFRARED IMAGE OF ICE DAM IN WINTER.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorMy life's experiences. Archives
May 2021
Categories |