Kenneth Baity Interview

              John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis. Military Oral History Project. Interview with Kenneth W. Baity by Cadet Andrew Baity.
September 27-28, 2008
©Adams Center, Virginia Military Institute
Baity – The following interview is being conducted for the John A. Adams ’71 Center for Military History and Strategic Analysis as part of the requirements for History 391—Sea Power in the 20th Century. The interviewer is Andrew Baity. The interviewee is Kenneth Baity. Today is September 27, 2008 and we are meeting at his home in Forest, Virginia.
Baity – Good morning Mr. Baity. Thank you for doing this oral interview. Can you please outline some autobiographical information about yourself?
K. Baity – My name is Kenneth Baity. I was born on July 1, 1959 in Winterpark, Florida. I went to high school in Richmond, Virginia and graduated in 1977. Before graduation I had thought a lot about what career path I would take and, at the time, I had always wanted to be a member of the FBI or perhaps some type of law enforcement agency. But it was a couple of months before graduation that I received a phone call from a recruiter there. It was a Navy recruiter, and he had asked me what I was going to do after graduation. I shared with him, at least, my thoughts about going into law enforcement and he asked me a very simple question. “Are you doing anything at this point in time, right now?” I think this was on an afternoon where I had already been out of class and I said “No.” He said “How about coming down and talking to me.” So I went down to the recruiters’ office, and he showed me a video of the nuclear Navy. I was intrigued by that video and I had given it some thought.
In fact, I had, for a long time when I was growing up, thought about joining the Navy. I had dated a girl whose father was in the Navy and I can remember that one afternoon at school she had actually brought me one of her father’s old shirts that he had had when he was in the Navy. I wore that shirt for the longest time. I just thought it was a really cool uniform shirt. VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 2
So I sat down with the recruiter and talked to him about it. I looked at the video, gave it some thought, and then started second-guessing myself. I tried to figure out what did I really want to do out of school? Was law enforcement where I really wanted to go? I thought maybe I should go into the military and give myself some time to think about it. I would get a career. I would get some training and would be able to save some money and when I got out, then I would pretty much know what I wanted to do. That’s why I actually considered the military and that’s why I chose the Navy because, as a child, I had always thought about how cool it would be to be out there on the ocean on those ships.
The recruiter was pretty persistent and he got me to consider something called the Delayed Entry Program. That was where you would go ahead and enlist. When you graduated from high school, you would be shipped off to boot camp. I did enter the military before I graduated high school under the Delayed Entry Program and I graduated in June of that year. After graduation the Navy put me on an Amtrak train and sent me down to Orlando, Florida for boot camp. Boot camp, I think, was probably about eight to ten weeks and I remember that, in boot camp, we shared the boot camp with the female recruits as well. It was a rather interesting boot camp. They taught a lot of basic stuff in boot camp—how to fold your clothes, how to march, the blue jacket manual, military requirements, the UCMJ and that sort of stuff. There was a lot of physical fitness training.
I remember, in boot camp, that they split the company into what they called a port and starboard watch section. They were looking for leaders to lead each watch section. I had been assigned to the starboard watch section, and I remember that the drill officer had selected me to be the starboard watch leading petty officer because of my experience in the marching band in high school. He thought, well, this guy would be a good guy to teach his watch section how to march so that’s what I was assigned.
I remember that going through processing in boot camp you’ve got to go through the dental screening and the medical screening and that sort of stuff. They told me “Well, if you’re going to the Fleet, you’re going to have to have your wisdom teeth pulled.” So I went down to the dentist and had my wisdom teeth pulled. They immediately packed your mouth with gauze and it wasn’t too long before you were back down on the drill field. I remember standing there on the drill field, marching around, and blood dripping from my mouth. You just kept going—you just kept pushing yourself. There was, essentially, no relief because you had your wisdom teeth pulled. VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 3
I also remember at a point where the discipline was probably an issue in our company. The drill officer was getting a little irritated with us. When we couldn’t pass a barracks inspection he took us back out on the drill field and made us form a circle and hold hands and I thought that was rather funny that all these sailors were out there holding hands in a big circle like a merry-go-round. He started asking us to run around in a circle, so we were running around in a circle, holding our hands, and he has this staff and he just kept hitting the staff on the ground and saying “Faster, faster, faster, faster!” I think, at one point, he accidentally hit a recruit in the course of that disciplinary action and the next thing you know he was relieved of his duty and we had a new replacement.
At the end of the boot camp you were asked to fill out a sheet with your desired rate—what you wanted to specialize in. Under the nuclear program you had four options. One was a machinist mate, another was an electronics technician, another one was an IC-men, which was interior communications, and the last one was an electrician mate. You filled out your preference and then, at the end of the boot camp, you were brought into your company commander’s office, and he advised you as to what you’d been selected for. I’ll never forget that day. My first choice was an IC-man; my second choice was an electrician mate; my third choice was electronic technician; and my last choice was machinist mate. He said “Congratulations Fireman Baity, you have been selected to be a machinist’s mate.” My heart sunk. I thought “I don’t want to be a machinist mate.” But that’s what I had been selected for and I asked him why and he said “Because you scored so high on your mechanical aptitude, prior to entering the Navy.” I thought “Well, that’s odd.”
Machinist mate school was where I was sent next, so I went from Orlando, Florida in the summer to Great Lakes, Illinois for the winter for Class A school. Class A school is a school that’s designed to teach you the fundamentals of being a machinist mate—the tools that you will be using, how to repair a pump, how to repack a valve, how to operate an evaporator—all those kinds of things that a machinist mate would typically encounter while he was on-board ship. I remember that it was very cold in Chicago that winter—very, very cold. I was assigned a relatively old barracks and the heating was a problem. I would go to bed at night just shivering—almost in full uniform. I had the blankets pulled up as high as I could, and I remember that we had ice on the inside of our windows. We used to keep our drinks cold by VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 4
just putting them on the outside of the window. If we wanted a cold drink we’d just reach outside the window and grab one. I just remember how windy and cold it was.
After Class A school, I went back to Orlando, Florida for nuclear power school and, again, that was for the summer. The nuclear power school was an academic school that was designed to teach you the theory behind nuclear physics. It was to teach you a basic understanding of thermal hydraulics. It was classroom that was designed for a good part of six months. Every morning you would go in to study these different subjects and then you would be tested. It was a normal classroom session during the day and in the afternoon you would be released to go to dinner. But you knew you had to come back and study because it was a very difficult program. You had to keep pushing yourself and so every night you’d go back to your classroom. There would be these quiet sessions and you would sit there and study your notes all though the night. Then you’d get up in the morning and do it again. I remember taking a lot of tests and doing a lot of hard studying. There was not a lot of time to goof off when you were in nuclear power school.
Once you graduated from nuclear power school they sent you to a nuclear prototype. You had three choices when you graduated. You could select Idaho Falls, you could select Saratoga Springs, or you could select Groton, Connecticut. My first choice was Saratoga Springs which I actually received that choice. Now, up at prototype, they didn’t have barracks. You had to go out and rent either a condo or a house or some type of apartment. I chose to share a mobile home on a lake with three other sailors. It was very cold, again, that winter and we would be assigned a specific section when we got there.
The way the prototype section worked was that you had these little study cubicles. You would take each individual system of that plant and learn every aspect of that system. You would learn to draw it in your memory. You would know where every valve was. You would go out and walk these systems down, hand over hand. You would understand what their function was, what their purpose was, how they related to other systems. Then, when you thought you were ready for a check-out, you would go to these staff members into these evaluation rooms. You would stand in front of this white board, and the evaluator would ask you specific questions about that particular system. Anything was fair game. The first thing they’d always ask you was “draw it,” and you had to draw this system from memory on this white board. Then they would ask you a lot of other questions about this system. If you were lucky VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 5
enough to get out of that evaluation with a few look-ups, you would come back later and provide him the answers to those look-ups. Then he would sign your qualification card. You would do that system by system until you had completed your qualification card. Once you completed your qualification card then you went through an evaluation board—a qualification board. I remember going to my machinist mate qualification board. You sat in front of a board of three people who were very knowledgeable. One of those was a commissioned officer and then there were two enlisted staff members. The evaluation board covered every aspect of plant operation. Since I was a machinist mate, that dealt with my responsibilities in the engine room, in the auxiliary machinery room—every mechanical system that was involved with that plant, I had to know in the most unbelievable detail.
After I passed the qualification board, they would give you this plate that would go behind your name tag on your uniform. Because I was assigned to what was called MARF—which stood for Modifications and Addition Reactor Facilities—our name plate was orange. So you put this name plate behind your regular black name plate and it said “Qualified.” I’m telling you, you wore that badge with pride because you knew the worst was behind you at this point.
MARF was a kind of unusual facility. There were several prototypes up in Saratoga Springs. MARF was unique—a new concept the Navy was trying to experiment with. They used control tubes instead of control rods for reactivity control. These tubes would regulate reactivity by water level inside the tube. It was unique but they rapidly figured out that this facility would not work on ships because of the tilt or roll of a ship. Then you would start getting flux tilting inside the core so they figured out that it was not going to be a good concept for the Navy. They just used it for a training facility.
After completing my qualification board for machinist mate, you had two additional options if you did well in your initial qualification. One of those was a nuclear welder and the other was something called an ELT, or engineering lab tech. Machinist mates that excelled in their qualifications and did well on their final review board would be selected to continue further training in one of those two areas. I had wanted to be an ELT because as an ELT I did a lot of the radio chemistry analysis for the primary plant and the secondary plant, and also did all the health physics aspects. We took radiation surveys, we kept dose records. He maintained the dose records for the personnel at the plant. So there were a lot of VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 6
different aspects of operating a plant beyond a machinist mate that I actually wanted to get involved with. I chose being an ELT because I knew one thing was for sure. I did not want to be a machinist mate.
I thought being involved in chemistry and taking radiation surveys and those types of things would minimize my time spent in the engine room. As it turned out, that wasn’t necessarily true, but I went on to ELT school, and it was the same process again. I stayed at MARF and I would study these two manuals in extensive detail. One was the water chemistry manual and the other was the radiation protection manual. It was the same routine. You would take chapter by chapter. You had to learn how to perform specific chemistry analysis and what they meant. You’d have to learn specs, acceptable ranges, actions to take when chemistry was out of spec. And the same thing with radiation protection too. You’d have to know all the different types of radiation detectors, what their purpose was. You’d have to learn how to take radiation surveys. I continued to stay there at MARF, where it was the same process on qualification. You would learn a specific aspect, you would go for your evaluation and if the evaluator felt you were knowledgeable in that, he would sign your qual card. Then you had to go to another final review board once you had completed that qual card.
Once I was done with my qualification as an ELT I was ready to go to the Fleet and, at that time, you filled out a dream sheet—a wish list—of where you wanted to go. You really had three choices. I didn’t have a choice of whether I wanted to go to submarines or surface because unless you were disqualified for submarines for whatever reason, then you would end up going to the surface fleet; otherwise you were slated for submarines. I thought about it and my first choice I wanted to take what was called a “boomer” out of Kings Bay, Georgia.
Baity – Can you specify what a “boomer” is?
K. Baity – There are really two types of subs. One is a fast-attack submarines and the other is a ballistic-missile submarine—which we called a boomer. I felt that a boomer was a submarine that would do specific tours of duty on a three-month cycle. They would go out for three months and then they would come back for three months. They had two crews called the blue crew and the gold crew. One crew would take it out for three months and while that crew was out, your crew would be either in a 30-day R&R period where you had some rest and relaxation and then you went back to training. So, for the final two months while you were in, you did training. When the boat came back in and you had to switch VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 7
crews, then you’d do a quick turnover and the other crew took it out. A “boomer” was just that. We carried ballistic missiles on the submarines. But I remember I wanted to go with a boomer because I wanted that “off” time. I wanted that period where I knew I was going to come back in and there was going to be some time that you could take for personal R&R. The thing with being on a fast-attack sub was, you didn’t know how long you were going to be out, you didn’t know where you were going to go. It was really uncertain and I wanted that certainty. So I chose Kings Bay, Georgia. That’s where the boomers operated out of. I chose Groton, Connecticut because that’s where the boomers operated out of and I thought if I couldn’t have a boomer in Groton or a boomer in Kings Bay I would take a fast-attack out of Norfolk—but I really didn’t want to go to Norfolk.
As it turns out, my orders assigned me to a boomer out of Guam, and I thought “How the heck did I end up with a boomer out of Guam? That’s on the West Coast.” The only thing I could figure was that I was single and didn’t have a lot of personal belongings, so they figured it would be easy to get a single guy with few personal belongings out to the West Coast. So that’s where I ended up going. Now, the boat operated out of Guam but the crew actually stayed in Pearl Harbor. I got on a plane and went out to Pearl Harbor. They had a barracks out there on Ford Island and that’s where I chose to live—out there on Ford Island. Ford Island was this island in the middle of Pearl Harbor that used to be an old airfield. I chose to have my car shipped out there but it would take a little bit of time before the car would get there. I remember that I stayed on Ford Island and it was very difficult to get around Oahu unless you had some type of quick transportation and it was going to be some time before my car got there. They did have a system called “The Bus” and you could get all the way around Oahu for twenty-five cents. We thought that was cool because you’d get on the bus and you’d just get a transfer going from one bus to the next and you could literally go all the way around Oahu on a twenty-cent token.
Until my car got there I decided I was going to get a little Moped and that would get me around Oahu when I needed it. I went out to the little Honda dealer there and got a little Moped to take back to Ford Island. The way to get from Ford Island over to the main part of the island was to take either a small boat or a ferry. A ferry operated several times during the day and went back and forth between Ford Island and the main part of the island. Or you could get on a small boat if it was just you. If you wanted to walk on foot you would get on this small boat that would go to various points around the base at Pearl VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 8
Harbor. I remember that I would take my Moped on the ferry and we’d go back and forth when we wanted to go out on Oahu and we’d tour the sugar cane fields and the various beaches around Oahu. We’d go to Hanama Bay and Waimea Falls and that was kind of neat.
When my car finally got there, I kept it parked on Ford Island but when I wanted to go to the main part of the island I’d have to bring the car on the ferry. I remember one evening where a couple of us guys wanted to go out and have a good time in Oahu down at Waikiki so we were going to take my car out. The ferry ride is about 30 minutes to go from Ford Island over to the main part of the island. It’s a slow moving ferry. What do you do for 30 minutes while you’re waiting to get over to the mainland? So we had a couple of beers and we were just joking around, having a good time—just waiting to get on the other side—as we were going across the channel there and when we got over to the other side, there were all these blue flashing lights and Shore Patrol and I thought “What on earth is going on?” We pulled into the dock and the Shore Patrol comes right up to the front of the car and he waves me over to the side. When I pulled the car off the ferry and pulled over to the side, they literally yanked us out of the car and threw us down on the front of the hood of the car. I said “What’s this all about?” The Shore Patrol said “You’ve been busted for consumption of alcoholic beverages on a commissioned naval vessel.” I said “A commissioned naval vessel? Are you kidding me? That’s a ferry.” They said “Do you see that ensign flying on the front of that ferry?” and I said “Yeah.” He said “That means it’s commissioned.” I said “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.”
Typically when you commit an offense like that it goes to your captain, and you go to something called Captain’s Mast. My executive officer received the report of the violation and he called me into his office and he looked at me and said “Petty Officer Baity, consumption of alcoholic beverages on a commissioned naval vessel?” I said “Yes sir.” He looked at the charge and said “On a ferry?” I said “Yes sir.” He said “Get out of my office.” I never went to Captain’s Mast on that but I thought it was funny that I got busted for consumption of alcoholic beverages on a commissioned naval vessel.
When we were not in Pearl Harbor we would take a commercial airliner over to Guam where they kept the boat. The boat would be tied up next to a sub-tender and then we’d go through our crew turn-over. Once the crew turn-over was complete, the captain received his orders and we would be out to sea. I made two patrols before they actually received the orders for the Houston to return to the VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 9
shipyards for off-loading its missiles. They had plans for a conversion of the submarine to a fast-attack as part of the arms reduction.
Baity – What was the boat that you were serving on?
K. Baity – I served on the U.S.S. Sam Houston. The hull number was SSBN-609. It was an Ethan Allen class—a 608 class submarine—which was the first ballistic submarine that was designed as a ballistic submarine. The 598 class—the Washington class—was a fast-attack submarine that was actually converted to a ballistic submarine. They actually cut the hull in half, put the missile compartment in and then welded it back together. The 608 class was the first class that was designed as a ballistic submarine. The Sam Houston was the second of the 608 class; the keel date was 1959. We carried 16 Polaris--A3 missiles. We had a forward torpedo room. I can’t remember exactly how long it was, but it was a slow moving boat and it was a quiet boat. I do remember that.
I made two patrols and when you get assigned to a boat for the first time there are a couple of things you have to do. Number one, you have to qualify on your particular watch stations in the engine room. As a machinist mate or an ELT there were several stations that I had to qualify on. The reason you had to qualify on these stations is because they would not allow you to operate anything until you became qualified on it. The crew sizes were only so big and you had to qualify on these watch stations fairly quickly, so the other members of the crew were not so taxed. In other words, the more people you have qualified on a watch station, the fewer times you have to stand that watch again and again and again. The qualified guys were very eager to get you qualified and you were very eager to get qualified so you weren’t such a lead weight to the rest of their crew. At least you could provide value. You could be a part of the crew.
The other reason you wanted to qualify is because your life was absolutely miserable until you did qualify. You couldn’t watch movies, or engage in recreational activity; you studied, studied, studied, and you did absolutely nothing except prepare toqualify. So your life was pretty miserable there for a long time until you finished your qualifications, but not only did you have your nuclear qualifications in the engine room but you also had to qualify submarines. You had to earn your dolphins.
Submarine qualification was a very intensive type of qualification process, much like it was at prototype where you had to learn every system on that submarine. You had to know where every valve VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 10
was, you had to know what it did, you had to know what the purpose and function of every system was. Damage control on a submarine was very important. If you didn’t know what a particular valve did, in the time of an emergency you could kill your crew. So qualification was taken very seriously on board a submarine, and it took a long time to get qualified. I remember it took almost a year to qualify in submarines before your could earn your dolphins. Qualifying in the engine room was just as difficult as it was at prototype. You had to do the same thing again. You had to learn what the purpose and function of every system was. You had to go through each evaluation check-out—the very same thing as prototype.
As a machinist mate you would qualify on several watch stations including auxiliary machinery room, lower level—which is where all the feed station was—the feed water system, the cool and discharge system, the charging system, the diesel generator. And then you would qualify in engine room, lower level and that’s not where everybody wanted to go because that’s essentially where the waste water was. It was where the bilges were. It’s where the high pressure air compressors were. It was oily. Sometimes pipes leaked and so there was always a lot of condensation down there. It wasn’t a favorite watch station of the machinist mate. Then there was engine room, upper level and that’s where the turbine generators were. That’s where the main engine was. That’s where the lithium bromide air conditioning plant was—the evaporator and that sort of stuff. Everybody wanted to qualify engine room, upper level because if there ever could be any glamour to a machinist mate watch station, that would have been it. After you qualified the watch stations, then you would qualify as engine room supervisor and that was the highest level qualification that a machinist mate could achieve.
As an ELT, not only did I have to qualify on those stations but I also had to qualify as an ELT on board so I had to go through the exact same thing that I did at prototype to qualify as an ELT. I had to learn how to take the chemistry samples, how to analyze them, what they meant, all the radiation protection, the dosimetry and all that sort of thing. I had to do that all again so it took a very, very long time to qualify on a submarine.
I served on that boat for four years. I spent six years in the Navy—two of it was going to school and then my final four years on the same boat. I went through three captains and I went through the VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 11
conversion from carrying missiles to fast-attack, although we called it a slow approach because the Sam Houston was not a fast boat, so we just called it a slow approach.
Baity – What were the living conditions like on the submarine?
K. Baity – Living conditions on a submarine. We had a crew of about 150 officers and men and I remember that the berthing space was just below the mess decks. Your bed was a metal rack, about six feet in length. If you are taller than six feet you usually ended up scrunching up. Underneath the rack was a tray, so the top of the rack—your bed—would be hinged on one side and it served as a trunk. So you’d lift the top of your bed up and underneath the bed were these trays that you put all your belongings--your uniforms, your toiletries—anything you were taking to sea went in there, and that’s all the space you had. You had to keep your dress uniforms in there, your utility uniforms in there, things like cigarettes or candy. Anything you wanted to take you had to fit it in that little rack space because there was no other space on a submarine.
I remember a lot of the guys would sacrifice that space and just pack these racks with cigarettes because, over the time of a patrol, the cigarette inventory would drop and those guys who didn’t plan well enough—and they were smokers—would find themselves really short on cigarettes. Running out of cigarettes in the middle of patrol, and you’re a smoker, is not the thing you want to do. But that happened, and so those who were smart entrepreneurs who didn’t smoke would go out to the PX and buy these cigarettes and store them in their rack. When the guys who did smoke became desperate enough, the entrepreneurs could sell those at a very profitable price.
The food was pretty good. The perishables like fresh milk, real eggs, lettuce, fruits would go pretty quick into a patrol. Then as the patrol grew longer, you got into the powdered eggs and what we called bug juice. It was basically Kool-Aid. We ate a lot of meatloaf. I just remember that as a patrol got longer, the food absolutely got worse.
As far as recreation was concerned, movie night was by far the biggest form of entertainment. Every night—though you couldn’t really tell whether it was night or day on a submarine—they would clear the mess decks and bring out the projector, and we would watch these reel-to-reel movies. Before we’d go on patrol, we would go down to this building in Guam—this warehouse—which had these rows and rows and rows of cases where the movie reels were kept. They were huge cases—probably 16 or 18 VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 12
inches across—heavy cases, and you would be able to select so many movie cases to take back to your boat before you went on patrol. We’d walk through these rows and say “O.K., what kind of movies do we want to watch on patrol?” Then we’d pack them up in our truck and we’d drive back. We stored these cases of movies in the upper level of the mess compartment. Essentially, we had this long rack that went down the port side of the boat and we would just stack these movies up. That was the big entertainment—to go in and watch a movie after the evening meal. You couldn’t watch a movie unless you were qualified, so that was your incentive to get qualified.
After the missiles were off-loaded the launch center down on the lower level of the mess compartment got converted to a fitness center so we actually got a weight room where the guys could go and work out when they wanted to. Before that, the only thing you had was books—we did have a ship’s library that we kept between the missile tubes—and movies. That was your form of entertainment unless you brought something with you when you went out, like a tape player for music.
I remember that you would do a six hour watch so you’d be six hours on and six hours off, six hours on, six hours off until you got more qualified people. Eventually, if you got enough qualified people, you’d do six hours on and twelve hours off. Frequently we didn’t have a lot of qualified people so it was mostly just six hours on and six hours off. You’d wake up and go get your meal and then you’d go back to watch and when you got off watch you’d go to bed; wake up, go get your meal, and go back and do it again.
Life on a submarine wasn’t too bad. People talk about being claustrophobic. I don’t think it ever got that bad. The boat was big enough so you just didn’t get claustrophobic, at least I didn’t think so. People always used to say that the air on a submarine was the cleanest anywhere in the world because we had these huge filtration systems and scrubbers that kept the air clean.
Oh yeah--showers and laundry. That was always a unique experience. The evaporator was a piece of machinery that actually made your fresh water. On a submarine the make-up water that goes into the propulsion system takes priority over the water that would be used for other incidentals like showers. Because the boat was so old when I got there I remember that it wouldn’t take long before something on the evaporator would break—a pump or a seal or something—and when the evaporator broke you weren’t making any fresh water. The first thing they’d do was secure the showers and the VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 13
laundry. Sometimes we would go days, even weeks, without an operating evaporator so you would get pretty “ripe” after awhile. You couldn’t take a shower and you’d go back to the engine room where it was hot and you’d get all sweaty and come off watch. They kept water reserved for cooking—that took priority—so we would have water available for cooking and water available for the propulsion system. Everything else got secured.
As an ELT I had the benefit of going back to the engine room and, of course, the water that got sent to the propulsion plant was the purest water of all, so I knew it was very, very clean and I would go back and collect these beakers full of clean water and I would use that water to brush my teeth. You do what you’ve got to do.
Baity – After your first cruise was done, the Sam Houston returned back to Guam and entered dry-dock. Is that correct?
K. Baity – Correct. They had floating dry-docks, and basically what would happen is this dock would be flooded and it would sink deep into the water. The submarine would be pulled right up on top of this floating dry-dock. Then they would pump the water out of the dry-dock so the dry-dock would rise up out of the water. It would essentially begin to float and as it would float, they would send divers down and they would put these wooden supports underneath the hull of the submarine. As the dock began to rise out of the water, the submarine would sit down on top of these wooden cradles that sat along the floor of the dry-dock. That’s how the submarine was supported. Once all the water was pumped out, they would pump all of the water out of the cavity in which the submarine was initially in, and then you would have access to the outside of the submarine as well. That’s how they would re-paint the submarine or do other jobs. That’s a floating dry-dock and that’s basically how they would conduct a refit on the submarine.
One of the first things that they would do before they would begin to pump the water out of the submarine was they would quickly cover the screw on the back of the submarine because, apparently, the screw on a submarine was very top secret—the shape, the way it looked, and a good satellite image could reveal an awful lot about a submarine’s capability if they could see what the screw looked like. As quickly as they could they would cover the screw up with this canvas bag. I thought that was interesting.
Yes, I did the floating dry-dock at Guam. It was after my first patrol and we had a couple of incidents that happened. Guam was very memorable for me. I do remember, at one point, when we VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 14
were undergoing a re-fit, it was probably around 1980 time-frame. We had the local workers in Guam working in this shipyard when one worker actually fell asleep in the sail. The sail is the top part of the submarine where the periscope is housed. He was sleeping inside the sail and the snorkel mast was raised at the time and when the circle mast is lowered it drops down into this big well that’s contained inside the sail. The officer of the deck ordered the circle mast lowered and when he did, we heard this loud scream coming from the top of the submarine. It turns out that this shipyard worker had fallen asleep in the sail and his arm had actually draped over into this well. He was kind of sitting down and he was kind of slumped back with his back leaning against one of the walls of the sail and his arm was dangling over into the well. The mast was lowered and when the mast was lowered it cut his arm off. The cook, who was very quick thinking, managed to recover the arm and put it in the refrigerator. They rushed the guy off and it turns out that they happened to have this neurosurgeon actually on the island of Guam when this occurred—which was very unusual—and they managed to re-attach this guy’s arm to the point where he actually had feeling and movement in his fingers. Everybody thought how lucky he had gotten to be able to have that arm re-attached and have that movement and feeling in his arm, but it didn’t stay that way. Gangrene eventually set into the arm and they had to re-amputate it.
I also remember the time when we had actually dropped an anchor in the floating dry-dock. You’ve got to picture this. A submarine out of water is pretty impressive. It’s sitting up on these blocks and the anchor is probably a good 40 or 45 feet up in the air. We don’t know why it dropped but it dropped and all you heard was this KLANG when it hit the floor of that floating dry-dock. It just made such a bang and left a pretty good-sized dent in the floor of the dry-dock as well. I thought to myself “Thank God nobody was standing underneath that anchor when it dropped.” I don’t think we ever figured out how the anchor actually dropped.
We had a guy who decided to take a dive off the edge of the dry-dock at one point. In fact, I think it was one of our cooks. He was apparently a pretty brave guy as this floating dry-dock sits high up out of the water. It was probably a good 100 feet, maybe 150 feet up out of the water. He was on one of the tall walls on this dry-dock and I think somebody dared him and they said “You know, can you do a swan dive off the edge of that dry-dock?” He climbed all the way up to the top and did a swan dive off that dock and then, of course, they’re yelling “Man overboard!” So they mobilized this rescue team and they go get him. VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 15
Of course, he was fine, but he ended up going to the Captain’s Mast and the last I heard he got transferred off that boat. I never did figure out what happened to him. I think he lost a stripe because of it. A guy diving off the side of that dry-dock—I thought that was pretty funny.
Patrols sometimes tended to be very boring. We, typically, operated off the coast of China. If you wanted to know where you were, you’d go up to the quartermaster’s desk where kept a chart of the boat’s location. At times they would offer something called periscope liberty. They would bring the boat up to periscope depth from time to time and ventilate the boat. They would raise the snorkel mast and bring in fresh air a lot of times, but you’d never actually give your position away. We would come up to periscope depth, we’d raise the periscope up, they would offer these short spurts of time where an enlisted man could come up and look out the periscope just to see daylight. It turns out that the one time I got periscope liberty it was nighttime. I looked out and the only thing I could see was the lights of Guam. Periscope liberty—that was one thing.
Other than that the patrols were fairly uneventful. Oftentimes you did a lot of cleaning. We would do a lot of ship’s drills. We’d do things called “angles and dangles.” When a captain takes the ship out to sea he wants to make sure that everything is stowed properly and rigged for sea because sometimes when you’re near the surface, the boat can roll pretty good and if things are not stowed properly, things will fly around and people will get hurt. So he would make sure that the boat was properly stowed so when we got out to deep enough water, we would do things called “angles and dangles.” The boat would go into a 30 degree down angle. I remember being in the missile compartment when we did this down angle, and everything wasn’t stowed. It was just sssssssssss all the way down the deck. Books and stuff that was not stowed—coffee cans, everything—would just go sssssssssss down to one end. Then we’d do a 30 degree up angle and all this stuff would go flying back the other way. By the time we’d finished these angles and dangles, the boat was a wreck. The captain would say, “O.K., now we’ve got to clean it up.”
You might want to know where all the food gets stored. We had, essentially, a freezer. We had a refrigerator. And then, most of the stuff got stowed in the lower level of the missile compartment--all our canned goods, coffee and stuff like that. We would have these working parties—that’s what they called it—and we formed this long line that would go from the lower level of the missile compartment all the way VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 16
out to the hatch and we’d just pass in these cans of food—one to the next—and it would go all the way down the line and we’d stow it in the missile compartment lower level. Then we’d put these cargo nets over it and that kept everything in place when the captain decided to do angles and dangles. We kept a lot of our stuff there.
After the missiles were off-loaded, we used the missile tubes as additional storage. A lot of times we would keep a lot of the canned foods and coffee and things like that inside these missile tubes. It was kind of cool. If you were asked to go and retrieve something out of that missile tube while the boat was underwater, it was a very ominous experience to open this little man-way hatch on the side of a missile tube and then you would climb inside the missile tube and get whatever it was you needed and then climb back out. I remember just looking up and down in this missile tube and thinking “WOW, I’m actually standing inside a missile tube.” That was neat.
Baity – Did the Sam Houston have any special characteristics or nicknames that made the boat unique?
K. Baity – Yeah, we always called it the “Sammy Suck Butt” because everything always broke on this thing. The keel date was 1959. Things just always seemed to break on this boat. The evaporator would always go. I remember, at one point, when the captain was doing angles and dangles, we lost the main hydraulic system and so the boat was in a four bell on a 30 degree down angle and, of course, the boats are rated for only a certain pressure or a certain depth and you’re just watching the depth meter continue to climb and the boat’s still on a down angle and you lost the main hydraulics. Pretty soon you get this order to go back emergency and you answer the back emergency bell and we’re trying to come out of the dive. Eventually we managed to restore hydraulics and come back out of the dive but I remember what a scary feeling that was, to be in a 30 degree down angle and you’re answering the back bell and you’ve got all this turbulent water going back over the hull and it’s shaking the boat and you’re thinking “God, am I going to die on this thing? Are we going to drop below test depth?” That was a pretty scary feeling.
I had six months to go in the Navy—six months left. That was my final patrol and I standing watch as the engine room supervisor. A guy came back to relieve me after he ate his evening meal and we did turn-over between the turbine generators. No sooner than had I gone forward and climbed into my VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 17
rack, then the power plant casualty alarm was sounded. I knew that something bad had happened. It turns out that the starboard main engine exhaust boot—there’s a flexible boot between the main condenser and the exhaust of the main turbine had ruptured and where we were actually conducting turnover, the guy was still standing right next to it. It blew him to the port side of the boat. It filled the engine room with steam. They had to evacuate maneuvering, which was the control center for the power plant back in the engine room.
This guy had managed to crawl down to the engine room lower level so he stayed low. Of course we had already shut the hatch between the engine room and the auxiliary machinery space to contain the steam and somebody managed to see him through the viewing window crawl up to the forward ladder. They opened the hatch and they got him out. He had sustained first and second degree burns over probably about 80% of his body. They carried him forward to the captain’s state room and that’s where they kept him. We had a corpsman on board. They would keep him on morphine to control the pain, but it was the screams that you would hear through the night. You knew this guy was in such agony but there was nothing they could do until they could get a rescue helicopter out to the boat. Then we would surface and evacuate him off the boat with this helicopter. I never did find out what happened to this guy. I thought to myself “If that had been five minutes earlier, that would have been me.”
Yes, they called it the “Sammy Suck Butt” because, I can tell you, everything that could go wrong, would go wrong. Our lithium bromide unit was our air conditioning plant. It was a plant that was designed to take steam and use that energy to provide cooling air for the plant. The lithium bromide unit would always—they called it “rocking up”—become rock solid, so we would lose our air conditioning plant. Our twelve units that we kept in the engine room could not keep up with the heat load in the engine room so it would just get sooooo unbearably hot back there. Being in engine room upper level was not where you wanted to be when that lithium bromide unit would go down. But as an ELT most of my time was spent in machinery two, lower level because that’s where the chemistry sampling stations were and chemistry was always a big issue with these propulsion plants. [end of day one interview] [start of day two interview]
Baity – We are day two, oral interview with Kenneth Baity—proceeding on with questions. Are there any particular memorable cruises or experiences that you had on the Sam Houston?VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 18
K. Baity – Yes, there were several. After the Sam Houston was slated to have its missiles removed and converted to a fast-attack, the duty station for the Houston was transferred from Guam to Bangor, Washington. We went to Bangor because they felt that the 608 class submarine would be best suited to train the maintenance crews that were being outfitted for the new triad submarines that were going to be stationed in Bangor. So we transitioned to Bangor, Washington and we had to go in and out of Puget Sound to get to the sub base and that was a very memorable experience for me because we would cruise the channel on the surface and I would be standing top side and you would see the beautiful mountains of Washington state, just cruising down Puget Sound.
As we would transition out to the Pacific Ocean from the Sound we would go south and we’d start playing war games, so to speak, with the U.S.S. Ranger group. The Ranger was a conventional aircraft carrier. We would do exercises to test the anti-submarine warfare capability of the surface fleet. I always thought that was pretty funny because we would run silent, run deep. We’d be so quiet and our mission would be to sneak up on the Ranger and launch a dummy torpedo into the Ranger and declare victory. I remember that occurred several times and I think the surface fleet got frustrated and they would communicate with the submarine, saying “Houston, we don’t know where you are, please identify your location.” We would have these signal ejectors that were in the forward torpedo room and the aft engine room. The one in the aft engine room was like a mini-torpedo tube. We would put these salt water activated flares inside this tube and launch it with high pressure air. We would launch these signals to show the surface fleet where we were and they’d go “Oh, that’s not where we expected you to be” and of course they’d send their ships over there. We would, of course, go deeper and get under a thermal layer and then we’d sneak up on the other side of the Fleet and pop back up and launch another torpedo and say “Aha, we got you Ranger.” I always thought anti-submarine warfare was kind of an oxymoron because there was no such thing.
Those are some of the most memorable experiences that I had. I do recall that at one point we pulled into San Francisco Bay to get some stores and to pick up the mail. We came into San Francisco Bay on the surface and it was so cool—there we were, sailing into the bay and all these sail ships and other small boats were circling the submarine and waving and shouting. I thought how odd that would be, as a civilian, to see this nuclear missile-carrying submarine pull into San Francisco Bay. We came in and VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 19
got some food stores and got the mail and we circled Alcatraz and went back out to sea. That was kind of a neat experience that I remember very well.
Baity – After the SALT agreement and the Sam Houston was converted to an attack submarine, how did that effect your mission statement?
K. Baity – Essentially, the Sam Houston became a training boat as opposed to a deterrent. When we were configured as a missile-carrying submarine, we would cruise pretty much off the coast of China and wait for our orders. When we off-loaded those missiles and became a fast-attack, our mission became more of a training one—to train the other boats in the Fleet, as well as the maintenance crews at the Trident facility in Bangor.
Baity – Did the Sam Houston ever have any encounters with Soviets?
K. Baity – Not that I recall. I do remember, at times, during periods of boredom I would go up to the sonar room and put on the headsets and listen. We would hear civilian trawlers and we would sometimes hear whales and other creatures in the sea, but I don’t think we ever actually encountered a Soviet.
Baity – What type of experiences, other than cruising off the coast of China, did the Sam Houston conduct as part of the nuclear deterrent triad with B-52 bombers, land-based ballistic missiles and subs?
K. Baity – None that I’m aware of. We operated pretty much solo out there. I don’t recall ever being affiliated with any type of squadron. I remember we would go in periods of silence and periodically the submarine would have to come up to periscope depth to raise its radio antennae to pick up any new orders that might be out there. For the most part, when we went out to sea, we were in communication black-out for a good part of the patrol.
Baity – As an enlisted person, what do you feel the relationship between officers and enlisted personnel was during your time in the service?
K. Baity – I think that’s a very interesting question. I would say that for my first four years that I was in, we had a great relationship between the enlisted and the officers. I think the leadership provided the officers makes the difference in the attitude of the men. My first four years were very good. In fact, VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 20
my first two commanding officers were very good. My third commanding officer I was not very fond of because he was very condescending with the enlisted men and he came across that way. Consequently, there was a lot of animosity between the enlisted ranks and the officer ranks and it was that reason alone that actually convinced me to leave the Navy and to pursue higher education when I got out.
Baity – What type of higher education did you pursue after leaving the Navy?
K. Baity – Well, because of my experience with radio chemistry and health physics, my division officer was actually a chemical engineer. My last division officer that I had on board was really a super gentleman who had the best interest of the enlisted men that reported to him at heart. I’d share with him my intent to leave the Navy and to go to college and he said “Ken, with your experience with chemistry in the Navy, you might want to think about chemical engineering.” So, that discussion is primarily the reason why I decided to choose chemical engineering.
Baity – Where did you get your higher education?
K. Baity – I attended Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and that’s where I ended up, ultimately, getting my Bachelor of Science degree almost three and a half years later after my discharge date from the Navy. I received my degree in 1987.
Baity – Did your nuclear submarine experience aid your future career ambitions?
K. Baity – Absolutely. In fact, the naval nuclear experience was the primary reason that launched my career into nuclear operations. I had actually started employment with Westinghouse Bettis Laboratory which did a lot of the manual development, design and research for Navy nuclear propulsion and so I worked in Pittsburgh for awhile. But it was the Navy experience that actually got me a job with Baltimore Gas and Electric, into the senior reactor operator licensing program. Had it not been for the Navy, that opportunity probably never would have presented itself.
Baity – You also had an opportunity to go back through nuclear power school on the officer’s side too, correct?
K. Baity – That is true. In fact, I think I’m probably one of a few that can actually say they’ve gone back through the Navy nuclear power program twice—once as enlisted and once as an officer. When I was employed with Westinghouse, it received its first contract for the Moore Training Ship Project VMI Archives www.vmi.edu/archives
Kenneth Baity Interview Transcript Page 21
down in Goose Creek, South Carolina. They took the 635—the Sam Rayburn—and converted that to, essentially, a training platform for the Navy. The Westinghouse employees were responsible for training the Navy officers and so we had to go back through the Navy training program as an officer so that we would receive the same training that they officers would receive. So, yes, I am probably one of a few that have actually ever attended it twice.
Baity – What are your views on the importance of ballistic missile subs in the modern world today?
K. Baity – I think that deterrent is absolutely critical to maintaining peace within this world. I think that with so many countries out there that have nuclear capability, and the volatility of that situation, it is absolutely crucial that we maintain that strong, dominant deterrent to keep things in check.
Baity – Finally, with these cruises and long communication blackouts, were there any pastimes you had that kept you sane?
K. Baity – Yes, that’s important. Boredom is a big part of submarine life and sometimes you pick up things along the way that try to keep you entertained. Towards the end of my career I guess in my more cynical days I decided to take on cartoon drawing. I would sit down when I was standing my watches back in the engine room—when I wasn’t going out taking log records or something like that—and pick up a piece of paper and doodle. I would doodle these cartoons of current situations on the boat and they ranged everywhere: what my division officer was doing, or what the main propulsion assistant was doing at the time, because he was making certain demands upon the enlisted ranks that people didn’t quite understand. I would try to see a little humor by putting it in the form of a cartoon. I do remember that the division officer actually found out about that, at one point, and called me into his state room and asked that I discontinue that disrespectful manner. I did. But you do all kind of things to minimize the boredom. Cartoon drawing kind of gave me that release.
Baity – Thank you for sitting down for this oral interview. This concludes the interview for History 391—Sea Power in the 20th Century.