THIS IS YOUR NAVY TODAY
By Bill Paisley March 16, 2010Region: North America
Topics: Bipartisanship, Emerging Threats
Speech given by CDR Bill Paisley, USNR to a reunion celebration of the crew of the WW2 fast attack transport ship USS Frederick Funston, APA-89 in June of 2004
Good evening
First I’d like to say what an honor it is to be speaking before you tonight. I’d like to welcome you all to Washington DC – this can be an interesting place to live sometimes, in more ways than one, but it is indeed unmatched in the history and the wonderful heritage that this nation has.
By now I hope you have had a chance to make it down to the WW2 memorial. Yes, it did take far too long, but each and every one of you are part of that memorial and you have certainly earned the honor it speaks of.
And this opportunity is special for me, as well, not only because of my respect and admiration for you, but because I come from a family of veterans, too. My father was a career naval aviator, a Vietnam Veteran, my brother attended the Naval Academy, and two of my uncles were naval officers. My dad’s uncle served with General Patton in the 3rd army in their campaign across Europe – and myself as a student of history I understand well what you have done for this nation, and let me be up front in saying thank you so much for your service and for what you gave.
I’ve been asked to speak about our Navy – your navy – the one you left us and the one we have now – and how it is today and what we are doing with it.
In many ways it is the same Navy you gave us, ships and aircraft and men and women charged with the responsibility of carrying out what our commander in chief asks us to.
But in many other ways it is different – different threats, different tasks, different times.
And these are challenging times for us. For many years our Navy was oriented to fight the Soviet Union on the high seas – protecting the sea lanes much like we did when you served. We designed our weapons systems and our aircraft and our ships and our tactics for the threat at the time. We developed the F-14 Tomcat for long range interception. We had long range strike capabilities with the A-6 Intruder. Our surface fleet had many destroyers and escort combatants, and the Arleigh Burke cruisers had the Aegis long range air defense system – all optimized for conducting armed conflict at sea, defeating the Soviet threat and keeping open those vital seal-lanes of communication and commerce.
Today, we are working hard on the transformation of our Navy from those open-ocean conflicts – the tactics and mindset and design of the Cold War years – with a strategy that our CNO has laid out which calls for the tailoring our service to fight in new and innovative ways.
That is indeed our challenge. And we are working hard on meeting that challenge.
But before I get into what we are doing with these men and women and our ships, let me just touch briefly on what things were like when you went down to the sea in ships – if you will forgive hearing it from one who went down to the sea in aircraft that ended up on ships.
60 years ago in 1944 our Navy was without a doubt the largest power the world had ever seen. On Sept 2 1945 we had nearly 7,000 ships and 3 and a half million men and women engaged in the sea services.
We had 23 battleships – that beautiful dreadnought, the latest IOWA class sailing off to combat in the early 1940’s, and serving 50 years of changing times, finally ending up with the last of the recalled battleships – the USS Missouri - heading back to the reserve fleet in 1992 and eventually becoming a WW2 memorial dedication in Pearl Harbor.
We had over a HUNDRED aircraft carriers – the “bird farm” that, after stealing the mantle of “Capital Ship” from those battleships, became and remains our number one platform for power projection today.
The numbers continue – an almost unbelievable demonstration of what this nation can do when faced with adversity and challenge – 72 cruisers, 277 destroyers, 371 frigates, nearly 300 submarines….and over 5500 other ships - mine warfare, patrol, amphibious and attack transports – like your own – rounding out this navy the likes of which the world had never seen.
How we got there is yet another incredible story – the shipyards and aircraft manufactures - building and launching liberty ships and combatants in days – not months or weeks, but days, and doing this at dozens of shipyards around the country.
Grumman Aircraft – in 1944 averaging nearly 20 aircraft per day being assembled, test flown, prepped and delivered from their manufacturing fields off to the ports of debarkation - the fruits of what we then called the Arsenal of Democracy - and what we can do when this Nation puts its mind and its back and its manpower and its will to what needs to be done.
So, we can see what you left us – where we were in the years immediately after the second world war.
Fast forward to the Navy of Today and let’s start off with some numbers for comparison.
Remember I said a few minutes ago about the three and a half million naval service personnel at the end of WW2? Today we have 375,000…that’s right…a little over 10% of what we had in 1945. Average age? 26
And while we don’t have the numbers of ships we had 60 yrs ago, we have a huge increase in combat capability.
Those aircraft carriers? We have 12 now, but with airwings that have the new F/A-18 E and F Super Hornets, our reach and strike capabilities are more adaptable to the mission than ever before. A single aircraft can project more power today than a squadron could 60 years ago.
In Operation Enduring Freedom, our If you laid a map of Afghanistan over the central US, and launched aircraft from the Gulf of Mexico, we had missions, many per day, flying to Chicago, execute their tasking, and return to the ship – flights of up to 7 hours in length.
THAT is power projection!
Our surface combatants, as well, are getting into the power projection business. Tomahawk cruise missiles, soon to be re-programmable in flight, can be launched from our cruisers and guided missile destroyers as well as submarines, assigned new and time critical targets as our reconnaissance assets discover them, and strike with a circular error of probability of close to zero – in other words, we won’t miss.
By 2015 we plan to have Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles – full sized jet aircraft, launched from carriers on missions of strike or reconnaissance, to be recovered onboard the same decks they launched from, all unmanned.
Change – adapting to the threat and the environment we work in - is the key to how we adapt our Navy to the challenges of today.
To highlight just one of the significant changes in how we operate, the vast majority of our ships today are either nuclear powered or driven by gas-turbine engines – if you are not familiar with that, imagine the same engines that power our most powerful jet airliners – powering our ships! These gas-turbines burn JP-5, the “jet fuel” that our aircraft use. Makes operations a bit easier when virtually every platform, afloat or airborne, can use the same fuel, and I’m sure you can appreciate how nice it would be to get underway within 2 minutes after engine start.
The nuclear powered ships, of course, are most of our carrier fleet and the submarine fleet – mission areas that are greatly enhanced by the increased operational capability that nuclear power provides.
Why do these things still matter? Why do we work so hard at getting better at what we do?
Aside from ensuring that we retain an edge over our enemies, the times we live in, of course, have the potential to produce frequent crises, with little warning of timing, size, location, or intensity and all directly related to the national interests of the United States.
Facing these challenges head on, our CNO, Admiral Vern Clark, made the following statement:
“To counter that risk,” Admiral Clark wrote in the October 2002 edition of the Naval journal Proceedings, “our Navy must expand its striking power, achieve information dominance, and develop transformational ways of fulfilling our enduring missions of sea control, power projection, strategic deterrence, strategic sealift, and forward presence.”
By doing so, we will continue the evolution of U.S. naval power from the blue-water, war-at-sea focus of the "Maritime Strategy" (1986), through the littoral emphasis of ". . . From the Sea" (1992) and "Forward . . . from the Sea" (1994), to a broadened strategy in which naval forces are fully integrated into global joint operations against regional and transnational dangers.
This is Sea Power 21, the new strategy that our Navy is working towards to achieve the necessary capabilities in these mission areas for the 21st century.
And we are doing this by continually changing the way we do business.
Our platforms, both afloat and ashore, continue to be multi-mission and multi-capable. Cruisers and guided missile destroyers provide significant layers of air defense, protecting both the local operational area as well as the entire theater.
The land-attack capabilities of these surface platforms is growing, as well. Long range projectiles carry many miles inland now, adding new meaning to the term coastal fire support.
Our aircraft, as well, reflect these new mission capabilities. The weapons we deploy are more precise than ever before in history, taking advantage of satellite and global positioning systems to produce the smallest possible chance for any error. Never before have we been so precise with such power.
But re-tooling those weapon systems and ships and aircraft and our tactics for the enemy of America and our allies today is not an easy task but it is one that we must succeed at. And we will.
One other element that I am proud of is the Naval Reserve force.
Integrating the Naval Reserve as more of a contributory element is also a key part of the Navy of today. VADM John Cotton, the Chief of Naval reserve, leads this superb augmentation force of sailors and marines, whose mission is to:
“provide mission-capable units and individuals to the Navy, Marine Corps Team throughout the full range of operations from peace to war.”
With over 145,000 highly trained and fully supportable and deployable reserve personnel, this capability to augment the active duty force is a huge advantage to our force – these men and women can shoulder the additional burdens and fill the gaps, without the loss of any capability across the full spectrum of Naval operations.
As a reservist myself, I am proud of this responsibility and consider it an honor to be able to continue service to my nation and our commander in chief in this way.
To finish up this evening, again I’d like to thank you for the honor of speaking to you tonight.
Your Navy – the Navy you left us - in good hands and is doing the work that must be done.
And we wouldn’t have been able to do this without you.
With all the talk of military and awards and honor going around these days, let me finish up with some recognitions you should be proud of:
The USS Frederick Funston
American Campaign Medal
– 2 Europe-Africa-Middle East Campaign Medals
4 Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medals
World War II Victory Medal
Navy Occupation Service Medal (with Asia clasp)
Philippines Liberation Medal
It doesn’t get any better than that!
Thank you again for all that you’ve done, have a safe and wonderful stay here in Washington DC, God Bless and good night.
