Contingency and the campaign planner

All of the media coverage on the beginning of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM a decade ago has brought up some of the recollections of those who fought in the war.  I noted last year that "survivor's guilt is a bitch goddess," but I felt it differently as a campaign planner than I did when I was closer to the front.  All this coverage reminded me of something I read about another war with Iraq, one much beforehand, and about the sorts of things that weighed on me for reasons I could not explain to my satisfaction, to anyone.

I freely acknowledge that I have no control over the sort of things that historians call contingency, or others might call chance.  And yet, it continues to grate on me.  It will probably continue to do so, long after the end of my wartime service.

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On 30 October, after the repairs were completed, the Iwo Jima finally got under way. She barely got a mile into the channel before she suffered a major steam leak in her engine room. The superheated steam killed six crew members immediately. Four additional men in critical condition from burns and steam inhalation were taken to the hospital ship Comfort, anchored outside the harbor. Unfortunately, the four men died soon thereafter. The Iwo Jima, which had anchored in the channel, was towed back to the Mina Sulman pier.

(VADM Henry H.) Mauz appointed (RADM J. B.) LaPlante (the Iwo Jima was part of his Amphibious Task Force) to conduct a preliminary inquiry regarding the circumstances surrounding the accident. LaPlante, then overseeing the start of the Sea Soldier II amphibious exercise from his flagship Nassau in the Gulf of Oman, immediately flew to the Blue Ridge. Ironically, less than one hour before the Iwo Jima had gotten under way LaPlante had sent a message to all his commanding officers urging them to pay great attention to safety: “Our most sacred responsibility is the lives and safety of the people entrusted to our care.”  The next morning, LaPlante sat across from the author at breakfast in the Flag Mess on the Blue Ridge. He commented that when he was younger he had found it hard enough to deal with men dying who were about his age, but now, having young men die who were about his son's age was almost more than he could bear. 

The subsequent court of inquiry concluded that a non-English-speaking repair person had used brass nuts (with a black coating to make them indistinguishable from the required steel nuts) to install a valve in the high-pressure steam system involved. When subjected to high temperatures, brass softens and loses its strength. Under the enormous heat and pressure of steam at 640 pounds per square inch, the valve had failed, releasing 865-degree steam into the compartment.

Marvin Pokrant, Desert Shield at Sea: What the Navy Really Did