WEBVTT 00:00:05.230 --> 00:00:09.029 All across America and around the world, this 00:00:09.029 --> 00:00:15.150 is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. Good 00:00:15.150 --> 00:00:18.609 day. I'm Jim Fossone. I'm the Officer of the 00:00:18.609 --> 00:00:20.710 Deck today here on Veterans Radio, and thanks 00:00:20.710 --> 00:00:23.460 for joining us. We've got some interesting stories 00:00:23.460 --> 00:00:25.640 for you. We always want to remind you, you can 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:28.739 find more about Veterans Radio at its Facebook 00:00:28.739 --> 00:00:32.420 site or at the web, veteransradio .org, where 00:00:32.420 --> 00:00:35.259 we're on the web 24 -7. You can find a lot of 00:00:35.259 --> 00:00:38.299 our podcasts there as well. We post new ones 00:00:38.299 --> 00:00:42.479 every Tuesday, so you can get a new story, a 00:00:42.479 --> 00:00:45.219 new interview, something you didn't know before 00:00:45.219 --> 00:00:49.460 by going to veteransradio .org. 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Dale at veteransradio .org or Jim at veteransradio 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:38.739 .org to get more information, but we'd love to 00:01:38.739 --> 00:01:41.180 have you come out and we'd certainly love to 00:01:41.180 --> 00:01:43.890 have you sponsor. We just want to remind you 00:01:43.890 --> 00:01:48.730 that Veterans Radio podcasts are available on 00:01:48.730 --> 00:01:51.549 all your favorite streaming platforms including 00:01:51.549 --> 00:01:58.290 RSS .com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts, 00:01:58.390 --> 00:02:01.730 I Heart Radio, and Reeves Across America Radio. 00:02:02.489 --> 00:02:05.030 Today we're going to hear a couple of interviews 00:02:05.030 --> 00:02:08.030 kind of centering around the United States Navy. 00:02:08.750 --> 00:02:15.030 One about a horrific loss of life and ship in 00:02:15.030 --> 00:02:19.150 World War II regarding the USS Indianapolis and 00:02:19.150 --> 00:02:24.349 actually some connections to a facility in southeast 00:02:24.349 --> 00:02:26.389 Michigan called the Grosse Pointe War Memorial. 00:02:26.710 --> 00:02:29.490 You'll find this fascinating, including some 00:02:29.490 --> 00:02:32.590 history that was lost but then found. And then 00:02:32.590 --> 00:02:39.729 we're also going to talk to a Navy veteran and 00:02:39.689 --> 00:02:45.969 about the importance of shipbuilding and competition 00:02:45.969 --> 00:02:49.409 with the Chinese Navy. Both are going to enlighten 00:02:49.409 --> 00:02:53.629 you even if you're one of those army pukes. So 00:02:53.629 --> 00:02:56.969 listen in, you'll learn something. We want to 00:02:56.969 --> 00:03:00.330 welcome to Veterans Radio today Betsy Alexander. 00:03:00.830 --> 00:03:04.669 She is the resident historian at the War Memorial. 00:03:04.729 --> 00:03:06.590 And we're going to talk a little bit more about 00:03:06.590 --> 00:03:10.909 that because that's kind of an unusual both job 00:03:10.909 --> 00:03:15.729 and location that we want to talk about. But 00:03:15.729 --> 00:03:18.370 what we're really focused on here today is an 00:03:18.370 --> 00:03:22.229 article that she wrote about the USS Indianapolis 00:03:22.229 --> 00:03:27.110 disaster and the men from Michigan who got lost 00:03:27.110 --> 00:03:32.349 in that World War II sinking of a destroyer, 00:03:32.349 --> 00:03:36.110 which was a big deal. Betsy, welcome to Veterans 00:03:36.110 --> 00:03:39.419 Radio. Nice to be here. Thank you. Well, you 00:03:39.419 --> 00:03:42.740 know, as a resident historian, you get to kind 00:03:42.740 --> 00:03:45.520 of pick and choose, I think, subjects maybe you 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:48.300 want to talk about. How did you decide that you 00:03:48.300 --> 00:03:52.479 were going to write Hell Gone Mad, which is the 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:56.099 story about Michigan's men of the USS Indianapolis 00:03:56.099 --> 00:04:00.310 disaster? Well, it was an interesting thing that 00:04:00.310 --> 00:04:03.009 happened. A lot of my stuff, it happens by happenstance. 00:04:03.210 --> 00:04:05.710 I had some gentlemen show up at the front desk 00:04:05.710 --> 00:04:08.069 and I got a call and it's like, Bessie, we don't 00:04:08.069 --> 00:04:10.729 know what they want. They are looking for a plaque 00:04:10.729 --> 00:04:13.129 or some artwork and they're looking for you. 00:04:13.129 --> 00:04:16.550 And I went, okay. So the piece of artwork they 00:04:16.550 --> 00:04:19.810 were looking for was a rather large piece of 00:04:19.810 --> 00:04:22.189 the Indianapolis. It was an artist rendering 00:04:22.189 --> 00:04:25.629 and it had supposedly signatures from some of 00:04:25.629 --> 00:04:28.350 the survivors at the bottom. and it was supposed 00:04:28.350 --> 00:04:31.689 to be here. And I looked in the usual spots where 00:04:31.689 --> 00:04:33.790 this artwork would be kept at in the veterans 00:04:33.790 --> 00:04:35.910 room and the hallways surrounding the veterans 00:04:35.910 --> 00:04:38.649 room. And I came up with nothing. I went up to 00:04:38.649 --> 00:04:40.529 the attic to see if somebody had stored it up 00:04:40.529 --> 00:04:44.269 there to make me mad. Not up there. And I came 00:04:44.269 --> 00:04:46.889 back down and I said, fellas, I'm sorry, but 00:04:46.889 --> 00:04:50.230 I cannot find this. I will look for it. And they 00:04:50.230 --> 00:04:53.589 said, the other thing we're looking for is this 00:04:53.589 --> 00:04:56.800 plaque. this big plaque. And I said, what is 00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:58.639 the big plaque? And I said, we know that you 00:04:58.639 --> 00:05:02.240 have some here. It is for the young men who died 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:05.480 of the Indianapolis disaster from Michigan. And 00:05:05.480 --> 00:05:08.079 they showed me a couple of press cuttings, very 00:05:08.079 --> 00:05:11.439 old press cuttings. And I went, oh, I would not 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:14.920 have something like that here. But that seems 00:05:14.920 --> 00:05:17.800 like that should be fairly easy to find. And 00:05:17.800 --> 00:05:20.819 so it's like, well, it's been missing for decades. 00:05:21.199 --> 00:05:25.300 And here's where it originally was. And it was 00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:28.160 supposedly in, they made it sound almost like 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:32.399 it was in, not a VFW hall, but a gathering hall, 00:05:32.680 --> 00:05:35.360 because the people who were in charge of it were, 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:38.519 I think VFW or something at the time. They were 00:05:38.519 --> 00:05:41.459 supposed to be the stewards of it. until a new 00:05:41.459 --> 00:05:43.819 place could be built for it downtown in the new 00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:48.180 Civic Center. And so I thought the obvious person 00:05:48.180 --> 00:05:50.240 to call would be my buddy who's a curator at 00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:54.300 the Detroit Historical because I thought if you're 00:05:54.300 --> 00:05:57.160 going to demo a building back then and you had 00:05:57.160 --> 00:05:59.500 something that looked valuable, because I always 00:05:59.500 --> 00:06:02.300 have to play detective in my role, the first 00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:04.680 place I would go to is there and secondarily 00:06:04.680 --> 00:06:07.810 then to the DIA and say, We have a giant brass 00:06:07.810 --> 00:06:09.949 plaque that might be worth something. We have 00:06:09.949 --> 00:06:12.449 a bust. We have a big statue. We're getting rid 00:06:12.449 --> 00:06:14.550 of the building. Do you want this thing? We'll 00:06:14.550 --> 00:06:17.129 drop it off right now in your parking lot. So 00:06:17.129 --> 00:06:20.709 I called my buddy, and he said, never seen it. 00:06:20.709 --> 00:06:23.230 It's not on the accession list. If I ever see 00:06:23.230 --> 00:06:25.430 it, I'll call you back. And I said, ace. That's 00:06:25.430 --> 00:06:28.410 a great deal. He found it about two months later. 00:06:28.629 --> 00:06:31.990 Oh, my. He found it. Back up. Why did these gentlemen 00:06:31.990 --> 00:06:37.509 want to find it? because they were the organization, 00:06:38.250 --> 00:06:41.550 the legacy organization for the USS Indianapolis. 00:06:41.810 --> 00:06:44.129 And they were in from out of town and they were 00:06:44.129 --> 00:06:46.389 like, we really, really, really want to find 00:06:46.389 --> 00:06:48.509 this. This is, you know, the big connection to 00:06:48.509 --> 00:06:52.490 Michigan. Who could have this? Well, let's stop 00:06:52.490 --> 00:06:55.170 here. We'll have a lot of veteran radio listeners 00:06:55.170 --> 00:06:59.970 who are not World War II age or World War II 00:06:59.970 --> 00:07:05.639 buffs. Tell us about the USS Indianapolis and 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:08.959 its role in history at that point and why this 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:14.980 is memorable today. The easiest way and the most 00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:17.339 obnoxious way to remind people of what it is, 00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:20.399 is remember when you saw the film Jaws and Quint 00:07:20.399 --> 00:07:23.560 starts riffing on, we're going to have the sharks 00:07:23.560 --> 00:07:25.959 coming and it's going to be like the Indianapolis 00:07:25.959 --> 00:07:28.639 disaster. I was there and he gets all crazy looking 00:07:28.639 --> 00:07:32.769 and a lot of kids and young adults saw that when 00:07:32.769 --> 00:07:34.670 the film came out and went, I wonder what that 00:07:34.670 --> 00:07:37.910 is, but they never checked into it. That is the 00:07:37.910 --> 00:07:41.089 disaster that is discussed in the film Jaws. 00:07:41.610 --> 00:07:45.670 This is a situation where the guys were supposedly 00:07:45.670 --> 00:07:51.490 carrying very important parts. It was basically 00:07:51.490 --> 00:07:56.089 the mechanism for the atomic bomb for Hiroshima. 00:07:56.329 --> 00:07:59.269 They did not know that it was on their ship. 00:07:59.470 --> 00:08:01.189 They were just told you're doing a top secret 00:08:01.189 --> 00:08:03.470 thing, you're to go in this stop, this stop, 00:08:03.850 --> 00:08:06.029 you're going to do it in record time, and then 00:08:06.029 --> 00:08:07.709 when you're done with that, we're going to send 00:08:07.709 --> 00:08:11.829 you off to do some drills over in the Philippines. 00:08:11.870 --> 00:08:14.050 And they're like, okay, cool. So they delivered 00:08:14.050 --> 00:08:15.829 the goods, not even knowing they had dropped 00:08:15.829 --> 00:08:19.670 off this, you know, monumental thing. And they 00:08:19.670 --> 00:08:22.129 were on their way then to these just ordinary 00:08:22.129 --> 00:08:26.370 drilling exercises and a Japanese submarine. 00:08:26.730 --> 00:08:31.730 who the U .S. government knew was cruising in 00:08:31.730 --> 00:08:33.750 the area. There was four of them the government 00:08:33.750 --> 00:08:38.070 knew about and did not tell the captain of the 00:08:38.070 --> 00:08:42.450 ship, Captain McVeigh, saw them and just after 00:08:42.450 --> 00:08:46.190 midnight, nailed them one night. Let me put some 00:08:46.190 --> 00:08:48.690 context around this in terms of dates. So this 00:08:48.690 --> 00:08:54.659 is July 30th actually of 1945. They've dropped 00:08:54.659 --> 00:08:56.980 off the parts for the atomic bomb that's going 00:08:56.980 --> 00:08:59.759 to end World War II, so we're almost at the end. 00:09:02.259 --> 00:09:08.200 There's 1 ,195 crew members on this heavy cruiser, 00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:12.580 the USS Indianapolis. A lot of guys. Yep. A lot 00:09:12.580 --> 00:09:15.960 of very, very young guys in their teens mostly. 00:09:17.279 --> 00:09:23.399 And the worst thing in the world happens The 00:09:23.399 --> 00:09:29.120 ship gets torpedoed and sinks quickly. In 15 00:09:29.120 --> 00:09:32.440 minutes or less. There's reports between 12 and 00:09:32.440 --> 00:09:35.379 15 minutes. The first torpedo, the first two 00:09:35.379 --> 00:09:38.879 hit the ship and the first one tore basically 00:09:38.879 --> 00:09:41.279 the whole bow off. So the thing was continuing 00:09:41.279 --> 00:09:43.480 to go and you're just filling with water. The 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:47.340 second one a couple seconds later hit the ammo 00:09:47.340 --> 00:09:50.399 in a couple of other compartments and it just 00:09:50.399 --> 00:09:54.840 went straight down. So you had - So really very 00:09:54.840 --> 00:09:59.360 little chance of evacuating or - or putting over 00:09:59.360 --> 00:10:02.860 the lifeboats or anything? Correct. Very few 00:10:02.860 --> 00:10:06.500 lifeboats were out there. Some guys had on the 00:10:06.500 --> 00:10:09.039 inflatable vest. Most of the guys were trapped 00:10:09.039 --> 00:10:11.899 below. I mean, it happened that quickly. Immediately 00:10:11.899 --> 00:10:14.059 the radios went out. They couldn't even call 00:10:14.059 --> 00:10:16.720 down and say, you know, evacuate the ship. It 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:20.799 was just a complete, really fast disaster. With 00:10:20.799 --> 00:10:23.120 guys who were also very green, they had just 00:10:23.120 --> 00:10:26.700 picked up, most of the crew were young 17, 18, 00:10:26.759 --> 00:10:29.620 19 year old kids. And they had just, this was 00:10:29.620 --> 00:10:32.240 their first couple of weeks of being in service. 00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:35.759 So they had no clue what was going on. So as 00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:39.759 I said, there's roughly 1200 men on the ship 00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:46.529 and not many survived. How many survived? It 00:10:46.529 --> 00:10:50.129 got whittled down really quickly. They think 00:10:50.129 --> 00:10:51.970 there was about, I think it was about 800 in 00:10:51.970 --> 00:10:53.549 the water. I could be wrong on that. I'd have 00:10:53.549 --> 00:10:56.889 to refer to my notes. Within the first 24 hours 00:10:56.889 --> 00:10:59.350 in the water, it was down by a couple of hundred. 00:11:00.029 --> 00:11:03.110 And they were just being, they were covered in 00:11:03.110 --> 00:11:07.210 real heavy grade oil, which was actually sort 00:11:07.210 --> 00:11:09.750 of a blessing because the guys apparently that 00:11:09.750 --> 00:11:13.779 were in, that had less coverage. were found easier 00:11:13.779 --> 00:11:16.460 by the sharks. Yeah, one of the things that's 00:11:16.460 --> 00:11:20.159 just horrifying about this is that it happened 00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:23.860 so fast, as I say, maybe it's 800 guys and a 00:11:23.860 --> 00:11:25.720 couple of hundred, two to three, I think it's 00:11:25.720 --> 00:11:29.480 300, survive ultimately. The others succumb to 00:11:29.480 --> 00:11:32.779 the elements and the elements include sharks, 00:11:33.059 --> 00:11:36.759 which gives you that modern movie reference you 00:11:36.759 --> 00:11:40.500 started with in Jaws. I mean, it's just... horrific 00:11:40.500 --> 00:11:43.320 to think about these guys out there floating 00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:48.360 in the middle uh of the ocean there were no distress 00:11:48.360 --> 00:11:52.419 calls no nothing no nothing and the government 00:11:52.419 --> 00:11:55.659 abandoned them they didn't show up where they 00:11:55.659 --> 00:11:57.799 were supposed to be the next day for the drilling 00:11:57.799 --> 00:12:02.080 uh exercises nobody went looking for them so 00:12:02.080 --> 00:12:04.679 you have a bunch of kids bobbing around in salt 00:12:04.679 --> 00:12:08.090 remember salt water so not knowing they were 00:12:08.090 --> 00:12:10.070 Thursday, they start drinking the salt water 00:12:10.070 --> 00:12:12.750 and literally, you know, besides your tongue 00:12:12.750 --> 00:12:15.129 swelling up and your throat closing off and it, 00:12:15.129 --> 00:12:18.009 it makes you mad. You go mad. So you had guys 00:12:18.009 --> 00:12:20.149 that were, you know, seeing all kinds of crazy 00:12:20.149 --> 00:12:22.470 stuff and I'm swimming to the ship there and, 00:12:22.470 --> 00:12:25.830 and swimming off and drowning. So there is, they 00:12:25.830 --> 00:12:29.169 were watching each other do that and trying to 00:12:29.169 --> 00:12:31.649 talk sense into, into their, their compatriots 00:12:31.649 --> 00:12:33.990 who were basically killing themselves. A lot 00:12:33.990 --> 00:12:36.700 of The young guys after a few days out there 00:12:36.700 --> 00:12:39.259 were so depressed. They just did kill themselves. 00:12:39.419 --> 00:12:41.779 They let go and they went under. And then there 00:12:41.779 --> 00:12:43.679 was, you know, because of the blood, the water 00:12:43.679 --> 00:12:46.740 and guys with injuries, it was, it was sharks. 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:49.279 It was a tiger sharks and I believe white tip 00:12:49.279 --> 00:12:53.399 sharks. And apparently it was, it was very ugly. 00:12:54.039 --> 00:12:57.659 And thank God somebody finally about the third 00:12:57.659 --> 00:13:00.360 day flew overhead and couldn't believe what he 00:13:00.360 --> 00:13:02.899 saw. Yeah, that's I wanted to get to that point 00:13:02.899 --> 00:13:05.720 because it's three date like three days later 00:13:05.720 --> 00:13:09.360 a Plane happens to fly by what's going on down 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:13.360 there because they had no idea no clue Where 00:13:13.360 --> 00:13:16.059 the Indianapolis was and they had obviously lost 00:13:16.059 --> 00:13:18.399 contact. There was no radio contact with them. 00:13:18.399 --> 00:13:22.360 It went down so fast It was almost accidental 00:13:22.360 --> 00:13:26.919 That they got discovered Yeah, yeah, he saw an 00:13:26.919 --> 00:13:29.179 oil slick. So he went down and he happened to 00:13:29.179 --> 00:13:31.399 be fooling around in the back of the aircraft 00:13:31.399 --> 00:13:33.779 trying to fix an antenna that was trailing. And 00:13:33.779 --> 00:13:36.000 he happened to look down. He saw an oil slick 00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:38.679 and he's like, wait a minute, do we have, you 00:13:38.679 --> 00:13:40.559 know, do we have like a Japanese submarine down 00:13:40.559 --> 00:13:43.120 here laying oil? I'm going to go down. So he 00:13:43.120 --> 00:13:45.320 went down to the surface and started seeing guys 00:13:45.320 --> 00:13:47.899 bobbing. And as he was calling back to the base, 00:13:48.179 --> 00:13:50.679 he's like, I've got like 10 guys down here. Wait 00:13:50.679 --> 00:13:52.899 a minute. I've got like 60. Wait a minute. I 00:13:52.899 --> 00:13:55.820 got like 100 some guys down here. They didn't 00:13:55.820 --> 00:13:58.440 believe him. They still would not believe him 00:13:58.440 --> 00:14:00.919 when he was calling back to the base. And he's 00:14:00.919 --> 00:14:05.080 like, move, go, do something. It's hard to think. 00:14:05.480 --> 00:14:09.440 It's hard in 2025 to put your mind in what it 00:14:09.440 --> 00:14:14.899 was like in 1945, where there isn't kind of like 00:14:14.899 --> 00:14:18.259 all the sophisticated gear and information and 00:14:18.259 --> 00:14:22.909 beacons and radio wave signals for survivors 00:14:22.909 --> 00:14:25.490 and that. I mean, it was a whole different time. 00:14:26.730 --> 00:14:29.210 And the Indianapolis was on this secret mission 00:14:29.210 --> 00:14:34.110 to begin with. And I guess the Navy didn't want 00:14:34.110 --> 00:14:38.529 to acknowledge it was lost or out there. It actually 00:14:38.529 --> 00:14:43.769 took the Navy a long time to let the U .S. public 00:14:43.769 --> 00:14:47.360 know. that the Indianapolis went down. Talk about 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:49.879 that. To me, that's crazy in a world of instant 00:14:49.879 --> 00:14:52.639 communication. It was, I mean, some of the stuff 00:14:52.639 --> 00:14:56.460 they did was, I can only say evil. I mean, first 00:14:56.460 --> 00:14:59.720 off, they didn't tell the captain that there 00:14:59.720 --> 00:15:02.360 was four subs that was cruising right in there. 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:04.940 So it's like, why would you not tell the man 00:15:04.940 --> 00:15:07.039 to be extra careful? Why would you not give him 00:15:07.039 --> 00:15:09.019 an escort, which they found after the fact was 00:15:09.019 --> 00:15:12.279 available? He could have had an escort with him. 00:15:12.740 --> 00:15:17.059 When they kept calling in other airplanes and 00:15:17.059 --> 00:15:20.000 ships just started diverting and talking, not 00:15:20.000 --> 00:15:22.559 even in code saying, wait a minute, the bases 00:15:22.559 --> 00:15:24.500 aren't responding. We need to go. There's guys 00:15:24.500 --> 00:15:27.039 in the water. So all of those people could have 00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:29.320 been court martial that did that over the next 00:15:29.320 --> 00:15:32.539 few days. When they finally had everybody picked 00:15:32.539 --> 00:15:36.720 up and collected and back on land, the government 00:15:36.720 --> 00:15:39.899 decided to wait until they could do the announcement 00:15:39.899 --> 00:15:42.960 that the Japanese had surrendered so that the 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:47.080 main headline would not be huge disaster at sea, 00:15:47.200 --> 00:15:51.120 biggest naval disaster ever. Guys are finally 00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:55.100 back on dry land, the rest are lost. So you had 00:15:55.100 --> 00:15:57.620 them down in the bottom part is the secondary 00:15:57.620 --> 00:16:00.600 headline in the huge letters everybody was reading 00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:04.080 was about the surrender, which was one of the 00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:06.379 final insults. Although they managed to continue 00:16:06.379 --> 00:16:10.860 by then court -martialing the poor captain. Yeah, 00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:12.600 I want to talk about that too, because it's in 00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:17.769 your article. gone mad for the war memorial but 00:16:17.769 --> 00:16:21.190 this whole idea that they sat on the disaster 00:16:21.190 --> 00:16:24.750 and didn't didn't tell the families that had 00:16:24.750 --> 00:16:30.169 where they had perished 900 some families or 00:16:30.169 --> 00:16:33.409 the families the 300 some families where your 00:16:33.409 --> 00:16:36.309 your son's still alive for like two weeks it 00:16:36.309 --> 00:16:41.330 was it was the 15th of August 1945 because they 00:16:41.330 --> 00:16:45.980 waited until after the atomic bombs dropped after 00:16:45.980 --> 00:16:48.759 Japan finally surrenders. Okay, now we'll slide 00:16:48.759 --> 00:16:55.500 it out. I had never focused on that kind of manipulation 00:16:55.500 --> 00:17:00.259 of public transparency. It was just really evil. 00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:02.840 I mean, it's like they kept compounding. So the 00:17:02.840 --> 00:17:05.380 government decides with all this going on, then 00:17:05.380 --> 00:17:06.960 people are starting to go, wait a minute, what 00:17:06.960 --> 00:17:08.519 was this other thing that happened with these 00:17:08.519 --> 00:17:12.400 young kids? So they decide they're gonna court 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:16.569 -martial Captain McVeigh saying, well, you didn't 00:17:16.569 --> 00:17:20.069 zigzag. And that's why you ended up getting hit. 00:17:20.150 --> 00:17:22.569 And so you endangered the crew and that and you've 00:17:22.569 --> 00:17:25.250 done terrible things, you know, whatever. And 00:17:25.250 --> 00:17:29.349 it's like it was it was said at the time that 00:17:29.349 --> 00:17:33.190 even if he zigzagged, the court martial should 00:17:33.190 --> 00:17:34.890 not have happened because he still would have 00:17:34.890 --> 00:17:38.690 been hit. Now, to to really cap things off, the 00:17:38.690 --> 00:17:41.910 U .S. government brought in is their chief prosecution 00:17:41.910 --> 00:17:47.289 witness. Captain Hashimoto, the guy that torpedoed 00:17:47.289 --> 00:17:50.569 the ship. So you have Perry Mason bringing in 00:17:50.569 --> 00:17:54.890 the murderer to talk about what would not. And 00:17:54.890 --> 00:17:58.710 the guy, Hashimoto got in and he said, they could 00:17:58.710 --> 00:18:01.190 have done anything on the planet. They were so 00:18:01.190 --> 00:18:03.569 close. They were under five miles away from me. 00:18:03.809 --> 00:18:06.990 I have them. I'm surprised every torpedo didn't 00:18:06.990 --> 00:18:09.549 hit them. There was no way. this man could have 00:18:09.549 --> 00:18:13.349 escaped. He did nothing wrong. No zigzag, no 00:18:13.349 --> 00:18:16.730 nothing. They were going to die. And that was 00:18:16.730 --> 00:18:20.430 government. McVeigh gets court -martialed. His 00:18:20.430 --> 00:18:25.750 career ends. It impacts the rest of his life. 00:18:26.470 --> 00:18:31.269 Yes, very, very sadly. testified for him all 00:18:31.269 --> 00:18:33.329 the reunions they just they still thought he 00:18:33.329 --> 00:18:36.289 was the greatest thing they tried from the get 00:18:36.289 --> 00:18:39.210 -go to clear his name going no this this man 00:18:39.210 --> 00:18:41.289 should not have been court -martialed they always 00:18:41.289 --> 00:18:43.569 called him captain even though he had a paper 00:18:43.569 --> 00:18:46.450 you know pay grade he considered himself a captain 00:18:46.450 --> 00:18:48.369 one of the guys and that's what they referred 00:18:48.369 --> 00:18:51.869 to him as finally when he was 70 years old it 00:18:51.869 --> 00:18:54.930 just took too much of a bit emotional toll he 00:18:54.930 --> 00:18:58.200 had not only survivor's guilt But he had these 00:18:58.200 --> 00:19:00.440 mothers and whatnot who were going, you killed 00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:04.200 my son, you horrible man. And he walked out into 00:19:04.200 --> 00:19:08.259 his backyard and blew his brains out. And today 00:19:08.259 --> 00:19:12.220 we maybe have more focus than we had back then 00:19:12.220 --> 00:19:17.099 on veteran suicide, on the emotional mental health 00:19:17.099 --> 00:19:20.460 impacts of service. And obviously, when you're 00:19:20.460 --> 00:19:24.019 responsible as a captain for 1200 men and only 00:19:24.019 --> 00:19:29.299 300 come home, You can only imagine what the 00:19:29.299 --> 00:19:32.779 burden that he had to carry on. And then the 00:19:32.779 --> 00:19:36.019 government, the Navy, the service he's given 00:19:36.019 --> 00:19:39.819 his life to piles on and says, it's all your 00:19:39.819 --> 00:19:42.200 fault because you didn't steer the ship the right 00:19:42.200 --> 00:19:49.680 way. Just an awful story. And by the time the 00:19:49.680 --> 00:19:53.670 story gets Fixed isn't the right word, but put 00:19:53.670 --> 00:19:57.490 back on the right path, it's too late. Well, 00:19:57.910 --> 00:20:02.970 it came full circle, really, when you had the 00:20:02.970 --> 00:20:06.390 fellow who was the commander then of the Indianapolis 00:20:06.390 --> 00:20:08.390 submarine. There's been a variety of ships called 00:20:08.390 --> 00:20:12.769 the Indianapolis over time. And that was Commander 00:20:12.769 --> 00:20:15.930 Toti, T -O -T -I. And he was like, wait a minute. 00:20:16.009 --> 00:20:18.069 that this guy should not have been court a court 00:20:18.069 --> 00:20:20.950 martial. And so he kind of, you know, looking 00:20:20.950 --> 00:20:23.869 at Indianapolis to Indianapolis, he started raising 00:20:23.869 --> 00:20:26.190 a ruckus saying what this is complete nonsense 00:20:26.190 --> 00:20:29.170 what happened. So he started doing all kinds 00:20:29.170 --> 00:20:33.190 of tests with modern, you know, modern equipment 00:20:33.190 --> 00:20:36.789 and what they knew now. And he proved and I spoke 00:20:36.789 --> 00:20:39.509 to him and I wrote in the article for rate on 00:20:39.509 --> 00:20:42.529 what he told me he says, I proved absolutely 00:20:42.529 --> 00:20:45.049 positively, that there was no way, even if he 00:20:45.049 --> 00:20:47.769 zigzagged, he was not going to be hit. The whole 00:20:47.769 --> 00:20:50.109 thing, again, he should have never, ever been 00:20:50.109 --> 00:20:52.990 court -martialed. They were looking for a scapegoat, 00:20:53.130 --> 00:20:55.970 and everybody knew it. Nobody on the other side 00:20:55.970 --> 00:20:59.049 got in trouble. None of the military guys were 00:20:59.049 --> 00:21:01.710 not looking for them or not telling them that, 00:21:01.710 --> 00:21:05.069 you know, there was four subs out there. One 00:21:05.069 --> 00:21:07.589 of the subs two days before had already blown 00:21:07.589 --> 00:21:10.529 up another American ship. They knew the four 00:21:10.529 --> 00:21:14.529 subs were out there. And then Hashimoto spent 00:21:14.529 --> 00:21:17.170 the rest of his life, he became apparently a 00:21:17.170 --> 00:21:19.809 Shinto priest, and he spent the rest of his life 00:21:19.809 --> 00:21:22.490 trying to clear McVeigh's name. Here he is, the 00:21:22.490 --> 00:21:25.890 guy that did it. It's like, I had nothing personal, 00:21:26.130 --> 00:21:28.990 this was orders, but... No, the guy was railroaded 00:21:28.990 --> 00:21:30.829 by the government and then you brought me in 00:21:30.829 --> 00:21:33.829 to testify against your guy. So it just it shows 00:21:33.829 --> 00:21:40.029 how outrageous, outrageous it was. It also and 00:21:40.029 --> 00:21:43.829 wearing your mantle of historian here for the 00:21:43.829 --> 00:21:45.970 Grosse Pointe War Memorial, it also shows you 00:21:45.970 --> 00:21:51.049 how whatever we learn in the near term to a disaster 00:21:51.049 --> 00:21:54.890 may not be the real answer. We may not have all 00:21:54.890 --> 00:22:00.279 the facts and Only looking back in hindsight, 00:22:00.319 --> 00:22:05.279 and I think it was maybe in 2000, Congress exonerated 00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:11.160 McVeigh. We're talking 60, 35 years later or 00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:15.680 something, or 55 years later, he finally gets 00:22:15.680 --> 00:22:19.339 exonerated. There's really this lesson to be 00:22:19.339 --> 00:22:23.960 learned about how much credence you put in what 00:22:23.960 --> 00:22:27.880 we know today. versus what we will know in the 00:22:27.880 --> 00:22:30.980 future when historians like you dig into things, 00:22:31.599 --> 00:22:34.920 talk to people, look at it from a different angle. 00:22:35.440 --> 00:22:37.200 There's a lesson to be learned there, isn't there? 00:22:37.880 --> 00:22:40.839 There is, and there's also, I mean, you look 00:22:40.839 --> 00:22:43.539 at between Hashimoto and then the kid, literally 00:22:43.539 --> 00:22:47.039 the kid that really... picked everybody up through 00:22:47.039 --> 00:22:49.200 Iran, whether they wanted publicity because it 00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:53.380 was a high school kid for his history day project 00:22:53.380 --> 00:22:55.819 said, wait a minute, I've heard about this. There's 00:22:55.819 --> 00:22:58.279 no information out there. He had just seen Jaws. 00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:00.339 And he's like, how come I can't find information 00:23:00.339 --> 00:23:03.900 on the USS Indianapolis? So he went out and played 00:23:03.900 --> 00:23:07.920 detective and he interviewed, he had about 800 00:23:07.920 --> 00:23:10.319 documents that he physically went through. He 00:23:10.319 --> 00:23:13.940 interviewed 120 of the survivors at that point. 00:23:14.180 --> 00:23:16.400 And he was like, This whole thing is fishing. 00:23:16.480 --> 00:23:20.140 He did his history day report, which I'm surprised 00:23:20.140 --> 00:23:22.400 this didn't go to the nationals. It lost out 00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:25.019 in Florida. And I'm very involved in history 00:23:25.019 --> 00:23:27.180 day. So that's what I also zeroed in. I was like, 00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:30.640 these are one of our kids. He went and he proved 00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:33.500 that that this whole thing was a bunch of nonsense 00:23:33.500 --> 00:23:36.720 and laid it out. And he started making the rounds 00:23:36.720 --> 00:23:39.259 of the new shows. And then it escalated up to 00:23:39.259 --> 00:23:41.779 like the David Letterman show. And so people 00:23:41.779 --> 00:23:43.599 are like, well, what is this? What is this thing 00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:45.329 again? This was Jaws. and this young kid and 00:23:45.329 --> 00:23:47.150 blah, blah, blah. And they started listening. 00:23:47.450 --> 00:23:50.890 So the right people got together around him and 00:23:50.890 --> 00:23:54.839 said, look, we can get you. into talk to Congress. 00:23:55.059 --> 00:23:56.980 Why don't you go and present what you've got 00:23:56.980 --> 00:24:00.880 in Congress? Tony came in also was pushing as 00:24:00.880 --> 00:24:04.799 part of that. Joe Scarborough from Morning Joe 00:24:04.799 --> 00:24:07.119 was involved in this back when he was in Congress 00:24:07.119 --> 00:24:10.460 and he laid out what the deal was and the kid 00:24:10.460 --> 00:24:13.500 is actually probably the one who pushed over 00:24:13.500 --> 00:24:16.940 the top getting McVeigh exonerated and getting 00:24:16.940 --> 00:24:19.200 the full story out as to what happened to these 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:23.000 guys. Compliments of The military completely 00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:25.460 botching the whole thing. Well, it is you write 00:24:25.460 --> 00:24:28.160 about this 12 year old. He was 12 year old student 00:24:28.160 --> 00:24:31.660 in Florida. Hunter Scott's his name. This is 00:24:31.660 --> 00:24:35.500 1997 and he kind of gets this all restarted again. 00:24:35.539 --> 00:24:39.819 It's really amazing story of how how that gets 00:24:39.819 --> 00:24:44.900 going. And and then we continue on. I see you 00:24:44.900 --> 00:24:46.720 and you have pictures in your story which are 00:24:46.720 --> 00:24:51.079 really fascinating about. The wreck of the USS 00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:53.819 Indianapolis finally being found in the ocean. 00:24:54.359 --> 00:24:56.599 Yep. Yeah, they thought that would never be fun. 00:24:56.599 --> 00:24:59.539 It is so far down. It's way deeper than the Titanic 00:24:59.539 --> 00:25:02.460 is. It is about as far as you can go down in 00:25:02.460 --> 00:25:06.079 an ocean at the bottom. And because it's so far 00:25:06.079 --> 00:25:08.900 down and there's like no movement or anything 00:25:08.900 --> 00:25:11.839 down that far, it looks as if it just went down 00:25:11.839 --> 00:25:14.660 yesterday. There's no rust or anything on it. 00:25:14.680 --> 00:25:17.460 You can read very easily the number on the side. 00:25:17.579 --> 00:25:20.750 It's like, oh yeah, that's That's the Indy. Everything 00:25:20.750 --> 00:25:23.250 is right there and spectacular looking. So that 00:25:23.250 --> 00:25:27.769 was, again, a bunch of civilians who went down. 00:25:27.890 --> 00:25:29.910 This wasn't the Army or the Navy or something 00:25:29.910 --> 00:25:33.049 doing, you know, looking for it. These were a 00:25:33.049 --> 00:25:35.049 bunch of civilians. And let's try to find this 00:25:35.049 --> 00:25:37.109 when we found some other wrecks. And again, it 00:25:37.109 --> 00:25:38.950 was people going, wait a minute, we got it now. 00:25:39.089 --> 00:25:41.650 See, this isn't right. Let's help. People keep 00:25:41.650 --> 00:25:44.410 telling the story to try to put the thing right. 00:25:44.700 --> 00:25:47.700 There's so many little facts that if you gather 00:25:47.700 --> 00:25:51.480 them, they change the whole perspective. You 00:25:51.480 --> 00:25:53.720 started with a bit of a mystery of the missing 00:25:53.720 --> 00:25:57.339 plaque. Yep. What happened to the plaque? The 00:25:57.339 --> 00:26:00.839 missing plaque. So Bill finds the plaque in the 00:26:00.839 --> 00:26:03.220 back of the, I call it the bubble car garage, 00:26:03.539 --> 00:26:08.319 in the very back of the Fort Wayne, the collections. 00:26:08.599 --> 00:26:11.039 big old collections building down for the Detroit 00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:13.920 Historical Society. He found that plaque and 00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:16.299 next to it was the other plaque I had asked him, 00:26:16.319 --> 00:26:19.559 if you ever find the plaque for Fred Elger, let 00:26:19.559 --> 00:26:21.400 me know. And he goes, Betsy, I found both of 00:26:21.400 --> 00:26:24.519 them together. And I'm like, oh, my God. So it's 00:26:24.519 --> 00:26:26.440 like, OK, what are you going to do with the plaque? 00:26:26.559 --> 00:26:29.640 Because people need to see it. And obviously, 00:26:29.640 --> 00:26:33.440 he gets to make the final call because he's holding 00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:37.740 the plaque now. So we give him the entire story 00:26:37.740 --> 00:26:40.250 of the plaque. parts we know. Like I said, this 00:26:40.250 --> 00:26:42.089 wasn't even in their records because they used 00:26:42.089 --> 00:26:44.349 to just take stuff in willy -nilly when it was 00:26:44.349 --> 00:26:45.990 under different management when it was a city. 00:26:47.049 --> 00:26:49.369 And so there is a, we had a plaque unveiling 00:26:49.369 --> 00:26:52.470 a couple of weekends ago at the Detroit Historical 00:26:52.470 --> 00:26:55.309 Society. You can go down now and go to the arsenal 00:26:55.309 --> 00:26:58.329 of democracy section up on the second floor. 00:26:58.529 --> 00:27:01.769 And you can see the USS Indianapolis plaque that 00:27:01.769 --> 00:27:04.390 was for the 70 some young kids from Michigan 00:27:04.390 --> 00:27:07.430 who went down and it was, it was paid for. or 00:27:07.430 --> 00:27:12.170 by the parents of the boys who died. It's very 00:27:12.170 --> 00:27:12.930 sad to see. Oh, thank God it didn't get melted 00:27:12.930 --> 00:27:16.390 down. I mean, you sort of go, oh no, did that 00:27:16.390 --> 00:27:19.410 get melted down somewhere along the lines? And 00:27:19.410 --> 00:27:22.430 you have that again in your article, a picture 00:27:22.430 --> 00:27:28.470 of it, which is sort of moving. And it becomes, 00:27:29.990 --> 00:27:33.029 did you ever find the other piece that the... 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:35.539 the folks came to the front door and asked about 00:27:35.539 --> 00:27:40.200 which is the yes with the signatures I got a 00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:42.539 call from one of my buddies who was in our facilities 00:27:42.539 --> 00:27:45.500 department he's like hey betts I'm in the I'm 00:27:45.500 --> 00:27:47.599 in the bathroom right now and there's a ship 00:27:47.599 --> 00:27:49.640 and you know I've always wanted you know this 00:27:49.640 --> 00:27:53.119 kid loves ships and shipwrecks and stuff and 00:27:53.119 --> 00:27:56.039 I said take a picture not of you in the bathroom 00:27:56.039 --> 00:27:58.220 but take a picture of what you're looking at 00:27:58.220 --> 00:28:00.319 send it to me right now so he texted to me I 00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:03.960 said Where are you? What bathroom are you in? 00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:07.119 He was in where the facilities guys go wee -wee, 00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:09.420 you know. Oh. I don't go in here. That's where 00:28:09.420 --> 00:28:11.880 the dudes do their, you know, whatever. And I 00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:15.400 said, that thing is coming off the wall. Thank 00:28:15.400 --> 00:28:17.920 you very, very much. And so I got a hold in of 00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:20.680 Jeff Ortiz and the guys. I said, we found it. 00:28:20.799 --> 00:28:23.220 It's in the. The maintenance guy's bathroom. 00:28:24.220 --> 00:28:29.019 That's hilarious. I was mad. You don't put something 00:28:29.019 --> 00:28:30.880 like that, which is almost a sacred artifact, 00:28:31.380 --> 00:28:35.069 into... the loo for a bunch of guys. So they 00:28:35.069 --> 00:28:38.269 asked them if they could show the piece of artwork. 00:28:38.529 --> 00:28:42.069 So that was also at the at the unveiling ceremony. 00:28:42.529 --> 00:28:44.890 I lent them that. So that was on an easel. People 00:28:44.890 --> 00:28:47.710 could look at that. The gentlemen who have signed 00:28:47.710 --> 00:28:52.470 it are all deceased now. And we rehung it. I 00:28:52.470 --> 00:28:54.930 spoke to our CEO and I said, this is going somewhere 00:28:54.930 --> 00:28:58.029 respectful. So it is right outside of our veterans 00:28:58.029 --> 00:29:00.490 room now in the corridor going into the Fred 00:29:00.490 --> 00:29:04.789 Elger where there's other military and historical 00:29:04.789 --> 00:29:07.269 things up on the wall. So everybody now can see 00:29:07.269 --> 00:29:11.230 it. So let's use the last few minutes here. Let's 00:29:11.230 --> 00:29:15.170 talk about the Grosse Pointe War Memorial and 00:29:15.170 --> 00:29:22.670 its historic and continuing honoring of men and 00:29:22.670 --> 00:29:27.319 women who serve in the military. When the Elger 00:29:27.319 --> 00:29:30.880 House was dedicated and given over, free of charge 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:34.259 by Mary and Elger, she said, you can have this 00:29:34.259 --> 00:29:36.579 as long as it's for two purposes. Half of the 00:29:36.579 --> 00:29:39.700 mission is to honor veterans and those who never 00:29:39.700 --> 00:29:43.359 came back and to put on programs, keep their 00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:46.380 memory alive, try to serve them. And the other 00:29:46.380 --> 00:29:50.400 half is for community stuff, classes, speakers, 00:29:51.240 --> 00:29:53.039 learning how to paint, things of that that are 00:29:53.039 --> 00:29:55.150 cultural. That's what you're supposed to be doing 00:29:55.150 --> 00:29:59.650 with my house. Here is my estate. And so what 00:29:59.650 --> 00:30:03.049 we try to do internally is we have a veterans 00:30:03.049 --> 00:30:06.529 community, a veterans committee part of some 00:30:06.529 --> 00:30:08.509 of us who are interested in veterans affairs. 00:30:08.829 --> 00:30:11.630 And we try to do something every month for veterans. 00:30:11.750 --> 00:30:13.650 We have a vet to vet meeting, and then every 00:30:13.650 --> 00:30:16.589 other month we have a speaker. So the loss of 00:30:16.589 --> 00:30:20.549 the USS Indianapolis in World War II was a devastating. 00:30:22.159 --> 00:30:26.880 naval loss, all kinds of men. So that puts you 00:30:26.880 --> 00:30:29.140 a little history in it, but you gotta admit it's 00:30:29.140 --> 00:30:32.799 pretty funny that the painting, the artifact 00:30:32.799 --> 00:30:36.680 that really was trying to keep that history alive 00:30:36.680 --> 00:30:40.160 ended up being hung in the maintenance men's 00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:43.940 bathroom. So sometimes histories... pretty damn 00:30:43.940 --> 00:30:47.140 funny. So let's have a few words from our sponsor 00:30:47.140 --> 00:30:50.019 and then we're going to talk about another naval 00:30:50.019 --> 00:30:55.259 subject which is shipbuilding and competing against 00:30:55.259 --> 00:31:00.099 our greatest rival for world power in the future 00:31:00.099 --> 00:31:03.920 which will be China. Military veterans touch 00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:06.299 everyone's life. I'm guessing right now you're 00:31:06.299 --> 00:31:09.380 thinking of a veteran, a close friend, relative. 00:31:09.839 --> 00:31:12.779 Maybe it's you. Even the toughest of us sometimes 00:31:12.779 --> 00:31:15.500 need help, but don't know where to turn for support. 00:31:16.140 --> 00:31:17.759 You don't need special training to help a veteran 00:31:17.759 --> 00:31:20.160 in your life. We can all help someone going through 00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:22.799 a difficult time. Learn how you can be there 00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:27.500 for veterans. Visit VeteransCrisisLine .net VeteransCrisisLine 00:31:27.500 --> 00:31:30.480 .net A message from the U .S. Department of Veterans 00:31:30.480 --> 00:31:34.400 Affairs. If you have a VA claim denied by the 00:31:34.400 --> 00:31:36.359 Board of Veterans Appeals, contact Legal Help 00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:41.140 for Veterans at 1 -800 -693. They're experts 00:31:41.140 --> 00:31:43.400 in handling cases before the U .S. Court of Appeals 00:31:43.400 --> 00:31:46.039 for Veterans Claims. Their number again 1 -800 00:31:46.039 --> 00:31:51.500 -693 -4800. We want to welcome to Veterans Radio 00:31:51.500 --> 00:31:56.000 today Navy veteran Jonathan Page. Jonathan Page 00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:59.440 is a PhD but don't hold that against him we're 00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:01.519 going to talk about all things shipbuilding. 00:32:01.900 --> 00:32:04.710 John, welcome to Veterans Radio. Morning, thank 00:32:04.710 --> 00:32:07.390 you. I'm happy to be here. I'm glad you found 00:32:07.390 --> 00:32:10.049 me and always happy to talk about the Navy. As 00:32:10.049 --> 00:32:12.650 you know, you can take a man out of the Navy, 00:32:12.690 --> 00:32:14.769 but you can't take the Navy out of the man. Well, 00:32:14.769 --> 00:32:16.490 and you're sitting, you're sitting now in the 00:32:16.490 --> 00:32:20.950 Midwest and I know I often look back, you know, 00:32:20.950 --> 00:32:22.950 I wish I was on the water again. You know, I 00:32:22.950 --> 00:32:25.109 wish I was on the ocean. This storm would look 00:32:25.109 --> 00:32:28.690 great on the ocean. So yeah, I can relate that 00:32:28.690 --> 00:32:32.849 you can't take the sea out of the Navy man here. 00:32:33.119 --> 00:32:36.880 But let me set this up a little bit. So you are 00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:40.480 a product native of Canton, Michigan, which is 00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:44.400 between Detroit and Ann Arbor. You went off to 00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:48.279 the Naval Academy. We're gonna talk about that 00:32:48.279 --> 00:32:51.579 a little bit. You did active duty in the Navy, 00:32:52.059 --> 00:32:54.680 and we'll talk a little bit about that. And then 00:32:54.680 --> 00:32:56.920 you went on to a couple of interesting assignments 00:32:56.920 --> 00:33:02.559 as the Deputy Ship Design Manager for NAVSEA. 00:33:02.680 --> 00:33:06.000 a Futureship Requirements Officer for the Office 00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:08.920 of the Chief of Naval Operations for about five 00:33:08.920 --> 00:33:11.660 years. And now it's been a couple of years that 00:33:11.660 --> 00:33:14.779 you are a professor at the University of Michigan 00:33:14.779 --> 00:33:17.099 Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering School. 00:33:17.700 --> 00:33:22.400 So some very... well -earned credentials in the 00:33:22.400 --> 00:33:25.140 field of ship planning and building. And that's 00:33:25.140 --> 00:33:27.200 a little bit what we want to talk about because 00:33:27.200 --> 00:33:30.539 we saw you quoted in an article talking about 00:33:30.539 --> 00:33:33.460 how the Navy wants more young people to pursue 00:33:33.460 --> 00:33:35.940 careers in shipbuilding. So we'll get to that 00:33:35.940 --> 00:33:38.779 and we're gonna get to the current projects he's 00:33:38.779 --> 00:33:42.019 working on. But Jonathan, how did a nice kid 00:33:42.019 --> 00:33:45.119 like you from Canton, Michigan end up at the 00:33:45.119 --> 00:33:49.279 Naval Academy? Great question to start with. 00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:52.440 I had no choice, is kind of the funny answer. 00:33:53.980 --> 00:33:56.980 You were running from the law? Is that what you're 00:33:56.980 --> 00:34:04.859 suggesting? Fortunately not. Not that I was the 00:34:04.859 --> 00:34:09.539 best high school performer. I got my fair share 00:34:09.539 --> 00:34:13.090 of... trouble, but I also paid attention to grades, 00:34:13.389 --> 00:34:16.670 played soccer, ran track, national honor society, 00:34:16.869 --> 00:34:21.409 et cetera. Now, the almost comedic part of the 00:34:21.409 --> 00:34:25.030 story that comes full circle at the end is my 00:34:25.030 --> 00:34:28.789 parents did actually dig up the letter of rejection. 00:34:28.989 --> 00:34:31.210 that I got from the University of Michigan. Oh, 00:34:31.329 --> 00:34:35.030 there you go. So as a senior in high school, 00:34:35.409 --> 00:34:38.730 I did not get accepted to the university where 00:34:38.730 --> 00:34:42.829 I now work. But I did still go through the process 00:34:42.829 --> 00:34:46.429 for the Naval Academy, talked with the soccer 00:34:46.429 --> 00:34:51.469 coach. And it was an alternate to the military 00:34:51.469 --> 00:34:55.130 academy. My dad had grown up in upstate New York. 00:34:55.780 --> 00:34:58.239 so during a family trip out there one summer 00:34:58.239 --> 00:35:01.940 in high school we visited there and Short story 00:35:01.940 --> 00:35:04.219 is it didn't appeal to me, but then my dad who 00:35:04.219 --> 00:35:07.579 was a Navy veteran himself I should point out 00:35:07.579 --> 00:35:13.039 served from 71 to 78 USS Inchon among other things 00:35:13.039 --> 00:35:16.880 back when it was an LPH He was like hey if you're 00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:18.460 interested in the military category there's you 00:35:18.460 --> 00:35:20.159 know there's this other one down in Annapolis 00:35:20.159 --> 00:35:23.719 the naval county should check that out and you 00:35:23.719 --> 00:35:27.449 know he He grows a little bit taller as he says 00:35:27.449 --> 00:35:30.429 it, you know, because he's a veteran himself. 00:35:30.489 --> 00:35:32.010 So I said, sure, I'll check that out. And of 00:35:32.010 --> 00:35:33.630 course, it was great. You go and you visit the 00:35:33.630 --> 00:35:35.849 academy. It's beautiful. The architecture, the 00:35:35.849 --> 00:35:37.309 structure, you're right there on the bay, you 00:35:37.309 --> 00:35:40.289 know, everything that we Navy folks like. And 00:35:40.289 --> 00:35:43.730 so I continued to pursue it and everything involved 00:35:43.730 --> 00:35:48.190 in that with, you know, letters from senators 00:35:48.190 --> 00:35:51.650 at the time and was ultimately accepted because 00:35:51.650 --> 00:35:53.949 it was the only place I actually got accepted. 00:35:55.150 --> 00:35:59.389 Yeah, you had a really narrow focus on what you 00:35:59.389 --> 00:36:02.670 wanted to do and that you know obviously made 00:36:02.670 --> 00:36:05.530 all the difference. Don't let him kid you folks. 00:36:06.389 --> 00:36:10.510 He's got a hell of a resume academically. His 00:36:10.510 --> 00:36:12.849 bachelor's is from the Naval Academy in systems 00:36:12.849 --> 00:36:15.070 engineering. He has a master's in engineering 00:36:15.070 --> 00:36:18.769 management from MIT. He has a naval engineering 00:36:18.769 --> 00:36:22.739 degree from MIT and I think your PhD in design 00:36:22.739 --> 00:36:27.659 engineering is also from MIT so we're going to 00:36:27.659 --> 00:36:31.199 kind of not hold all of those degrees against 00:36:31.199 --> 00:36:33.320 you because you got all this great experience. 00:36:33.639 --> 00:36:35.820 Tell us about your experience in the Navy a little 00:36:35.820 --> 00:36:41.219 bit. So starting to pull the threads all the 00:36:41.219 --> 00:36:43.300 way through a little bit I have always been interested 00:36:43.300 --> 00:36:47.440 in engineering and so part of the decision was 00:36:47.440 --> 00:36:49.679 that Annapolis is known, you know, the Naval 00:36:49.679 --> 00:36:52.300 Academy is known to have good engineering. And 00:36:52.300 --> 00:36:55.059 so while I was there, performed well enough that 00:36:55.059 --> 00:36:58.900 I was given an option to become an engineering 00:36:58.900 --> 00:37:03.260 duty officer. The first part of what that community 00:37:03.610 --> 00:37:07.750 likes is we want to make sure as we repair, acquire, 00:37:07.929 --> 00:37:09.590 and do all the things that the engineering duty 00:37:09.590 --> 00:37:12.090 community does with ships, we want to have served 00:37:12.090 --> 00:37:15.210 on ships. So we know what it's like for the sailors 00:37:15.210 --> 00:37:18.929 and officers that are out in harm's way months 00:37:18.929 --> 00:37:23.389 at a time. So I started off on DDG 63, USS Stedum 00:37:23.389 --> 00:37:26.289 out of San Diego. I was the communications officer. 00:37:27.619 --> 00:37:31.760 But got fully qualified on on the ship For you 00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:33.800 know topside driving the ship, you know officer 00:37:33.800 --> 00:37:36.880 of the watch officer the deck Everything entailed 00:37:36.880 --> 00:37:39.980 with that and there my surface warfare pin on 00:37:39.980 --> 00:37:45.329 that ship under a slew of great leaders from 00:37:45.329 --> 00:37:49.769 Dave Malin to Charlie Williams and others before 00:37:49.769 --> 00:37:53.610 I transferred to the engineering community. So 00:37:53.610 --> 00:37:55.750 now instead of operating DEGs, now I was repairing 00:37:55.750 --> 00:37:58.650 them. So I went immediately to a qualification 00:37:58.650 --> 00:38:01.510 tour at the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, 00:38:01.969 --> 00:38:05.349 which is the hub of maintenance, repair, and 00:38:05.349 --> 00:38:08.900 modernization for for the Pacific fleet there 00:38:08.900 --> 00:38:11.380 and most of the Pacific fleet, for the combatant 00:38:11.380 --> 00:38:14.139 fleet and amphibious fleet there in San Diego. 00:38:15.340 --> 00:38:19.599 And did some repairs on LHDs and most notably 00:38:19.599 --> 00:38:24.639 had a really unfortunate and cool project where 00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:29.519 the main reduction gear on USS Halsey, DDG -97, 00:38:30.039 --> 00:38:35.869 it blew up for just to... shorten what actually 00:38:35.869 --> 00:38:38.650 happens but main reduction gear severely damaged 00:38:38.650 --> 00:38:41.949 so we have to perform open heart surgery right 00:38:41.949 --> 00:38:44.010 on a ship right we got to take out the guts we 00:38:44.010 --> 00:38:45.949 got to take out the main reduction gear the thing 00:38:45.949 --> 00:38:48.150 that takes power from the engines and puts it 00:38:48.150 --> 00:38:49.909 down the shaft right it's like the transmission 00:38:49.909 --> 00:38:55.250 of the ship so we had to take out this 12 foot 00:38:55.250 --> 00:39:01.210 by 14 foot by 16 foot 60 ton thing out of the 00:39:01.210 --> 00:39:04.050 middle of the ship and put in a brand new one 00:39:04.050 --> 00:39:07.469 and then align it and get the ship back operational 00:39:07.469 --> 00:39:11.710 again. So just a really cool experience to kind 00:39:11.710 --> 00:39:14.510 of like take a ship apart and put it back together 00:39:14.510 --> 00:39:17.630 over the course of seven months with that project. 00:39:19.099 --> 00:39:21.920 Yeah, just fantastic. Crawling around, diving 00:39:21.920 --> 00:39:24.739 in the bilges, looking at alignments, shaft alignment, 00:39:24.920 --> 00:39:28.099 you know, gear bluing and teeth contact and just 00:39:28.099 --> 00:39:31.000 learning all this cool engineering stuff on what 00:39:31.000 --> 00:39:35.119 really makes a ship literally go, right, and 00:39:35.119 --> 00:39:39.179 sail. Now are you in the West Coast at this point 00:39:39.179 --> 00:39:42.099 or the East Coast? Correct still that this was 00:39:42.099 --> 00:39:44.639 in San Diego still correct yeah great question. 00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:47.219 And let me back you up because I think I shortchanged 00:39:47.219 --> 00:39:49.639 you how many total years do you have did you 00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:53.639 have in active duty Navy? 21 years total. Okay 00:39:53.639 --> 00:39:57.800 21 years active duty and then these other assignments 00:39:57.800 --> 00:40:02.519 that I mentioned in the office of the CNO that 00:40:02.519 --> 00:40:07.190 that's after active duty. No. That's part of 00:40:07.190 --> 00:40:13.349 the activity. Okay got it got it. And what kept 00:40:13.349 --> 00:40:15.929 driving you to like not only pick up the masters 00:40:15.929 --> 00:40:20.409 but the PhD and kind of these are great opportunities 00:40:20.409 --> 00:40:24.269 that the Navy was presenting and you took advantage 00:40:24.269 --> 00:40:27.869 of it sounds like. For the most part slightly 00:40:27.869 --> 00:40:30.489 different but yeah the the nuance difference 00:40:30.489 --> 00:40:33.590 so for the master's degree Right after that repair 00:40:33.590 --> 00:40:36.650 tour, that's when I went to MIT the first time 00:40:36.650 --> 00:40:39.750 to earn the two master's degrees. As part of 00:40:39.750 --> 00:40:44.349 the engineering duty community, we want everyone. 00:40:44.730 --> 00:40:47.030 We are the technical leaders of the Navy. And 00:40:47.030 --> 00:40:51.710 so we need to make sure that we have good technical 00:40:51.710 --> 00:40:56.090 chops. And so everyone in the. EDO community 00:40:56.090 --> 00:40:59.429 is required as part of their qualification to 00:40:59.429 --> 00:41:04.269 get a technical master's degree. And we have 00:41:04.269 --> 00:41:08.889 about 10 billets per year at MIT as one potential 00:41:08.889 --> 00:41:11.889 option to get that technical master's degree. 00:41:13.070 --> 00:41:16.010 So much of an eagle to have me. I applied, and 00:41:16.010 --> 00:41:21.099 I crossed my fingers, and I hold my breath. Luckily, 00:41:22.400 --> 00:41:24.840 I was fortunate to be one of the ones accepted 00:41:24.840 --> 00:41:29.619 into the cohort that started in 2008 with a bunch 00:41:29.619 --> 00:41:32.099 of other great folks that are now, you know, 00:41:32.139 --> 00:41:34.179 many of them are still in the Navy. You know, 00:41:34.280 --> 00:41:37.699 the operations officer at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard 00:41:37.699 --> 00:41:40.699 was one of my classmates. Somebody running the 00:41:40.699 --> 00:41:43.260 dive locker for NAVSEA was another one of my 00:41:43.260 --> 00:41:46.489 classmates. Someone running Norfolk Naval Shipyard, 00:41:46.809 --> 00:41:48.610 another one. So just an incredible wardroom, 00:41:48.670 --> 00:41:51.090 incredible group of people that are also now 00:41:51.090 --> 00:41:54.809 still doing great things still in uniform. So 00:41:54.809 --> 00:41:57.309 the EDO community required me to get those first 00:41:57.309 --> 00:42:02.179 two degrees. In between right sort of a little 00:42:02.179 --> 00:42:03.699 bit of a fast -forward then I wouldn't worked 00:42:03.699 --> 00:42:07.380 on DDG 1000 right so I I started on that ship 00:42:07.380 --> 00:42:09.420 when when she was pieces and parts all around 00:42:09.420 --> 00:42:13.880 the shipyard up in Bath, Maine and Helped assemble 00:42:13.880 --> 00:42:18.199 her and resolve technical issues there and got 00:42:18.199 --> 00:42:21.599 her to float off at least before I left that 00:42:21.599 --> 00:42:25.219 tour and about it was about a year or two before 00:42:25.219 --> 00:42:29.429 she left the IW on sort of the maiden voyage 00:42:29.429 --> 00:42:32.429 and the trials. After that I went to NASCO. So 00:42:32.429 --> 00:42:36.929 back to the West Coast to be the supervisor of 00:42:36.929 --> 00:42:38.809 shipbuilding representative down there. Basically 00:42:38.809 --> 00:42:42.050 the government oversight for the shipyard who 00:42:42.050 --> 00:42:44.889 was building the expeditionary staging bases 00:42:44.889 --> 00:42:52.389 for us. So I accepted delivery of the USNS Chessy 00:42:52.389 --> 00:42:55.119 Puller. Right, or excuse me, Louis B. Puller, 00:42:55.219 --> 00:43:01.239 we all know him. Right, but yeah, so USS Louis 00:43:01.239 --> 00:43:03.820 B. Puller, so, you know, first ship of the class, 00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:07.400 but, you know, similar to that repair tour, you 00:43:07.400 --> 00:43:11.099 know, back. crawling the ship with the contractor, 00:43:11.320 --> 00:43:14.340 with NASCO, with the folks working for me, looking 00:43:14.340 --> 00:43:16.679 at quality, looking at cost, making sure that 00:43:16.679 --> 00:43:19.239 the government, that the Navy is getting the 00:43:19.239 --> 00:43:21.619 product that we want out of those ships. And 00:43:21.619 --> 00:43:24.699 just a fantastic experience working through some 00:43:24.699 --> 00:43:29.139 of the issues with drainage and AFFF for firefighting 00:43:29.139 --> 00:43:31.880 and some of these new systems for these types 00:43:31.880 --> 00:43:34.760 of ships. Well, we probably could do a whole 00:43:34.760 --> 00:43:37.639 other segment about the berthing quarters on 00:43:37.639 --> 00:43:42.449 ship and the relationship between real sleep 00:43:42.449 --> 00:43:45.929 and what's needed and you get on a Navy ship. 00:43:46.550 --> 00:43:50.550 We've talked to Dr. Cordell before on this issue. 00:43:50.829 --> 00:43:55.269 It's a real issue for Navy folks. But what I 00:43:55.269 --> 00:43:57.829 wanna move forward on before we chew up a lot 00:43:57.829 --> 00:44:04.650 of time again is you've had that shipyard, shipbuilding 00:44:04.650 --> 00:44:11.500 experience and as we hear about the country's 00:44:11.500 --> 00:44:15.500 national security needs for a more robust Navy 00:44:15.500 --> 00:44:19.179 and that we're not keeping up with shipbuilding 00:44:19.179 --> 00:44:22.659 from places like Korea and certainly our adversaries 00:44:22.659 --> 00:44:27.760 in China, is that really a concern in the upper 00:44:27.760 --> 00:44:31.599 echelons of the Navy and how do we attack it? 00:44:33.000 --> 00:44:39.650 It is, so from For the last two experiences I 00:44:39.650 --> 00:44:41.489 had, where I was the Deputy Ship Design Manager 00:44:41.489 --> 00:44:43.730 and where I was on CNO stat, I was the Future 00:44:43.730 --> 00:44:47.269 Surface Requirements Officer. So helping to set 00:44:47.269 --> 00:44:50.110 requirements for future frigates and unmanned 00:44:50.110 --> 00:44:56.170 vehicles and future destroyers and everything 00:44:56.170 --> 00:45:00.710 that's sort of five, 10, 15, 40 years out there. 00:45:01.650 --> 00:45:06.320 We do understand One way we can think about an 00:45:06.320 --> 00:45:11.420 issue sometimes is that quantity is its own quality, 00:45:11.599 --> 00:45:17.980 right? Meaning that right now, the US Navy knows 00:45:17.980 --> 00:45:22.219 we have better ships, right? We have the best 00:45:22.219 --> 00:45:25.320 ships in the world, and we know we can be better. 00:45:26.119 --> 00:45:30.239 And we know China has more ships. What we don't 00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:32.480 want is that they have more ships and better 00:45:32.480 --> 00:45:35.099 ships. And so knowing that we have better ships, 00:45:35.280 --> 00:45:39.059 we know we want more ships so that that equation 00:45:39.059 --> 00:45:44.900 never heads in that direction, right? So it is, 00:45:46.199 --> 00:45:51.239 we know it is important and what we'd like is 00:45:51.239 --> 00:45:54.809 to hear that Congress is talking about it. The 00:45:54.809 --> 00:45:56.510 president is talking about it. The Navy is talking 00:45:56.510 --> 00:45:58.989 about it. Industry is talking about it. It is 00:45:58.989 --> 00:46:03.750 bipartisan, bicameral. Everybody agrees and everybody's 00:46:03.750 --> 00:46:07.550 speaking along the lines that and it's not just 00:46:07.550 --> 00:46:12.789 military vessels. Part of the value chain for 00:46:12.789 --> 00:46:16.110 Japan and Korea and China is that they have a 00:46:16.110 --> 00:46:19.110 very robust commercial shipbuilding business 00:46:19.110 --> 00:46:24.849 as well that aids them being good at their military 00:46:24.849 --> 00:46:28.750 side of the business. So we understand we want 00:46:28.750 --> 00:46:31.869 to do the same, you know, create a rising tide 00:46:31.869 --> 00:46:35.949 through the whole industry, both commercial and 00:46:35.949 --> 00:46:41.489 military. And so part of the language that we're 00:46:41.489 --> 00:46:44.789 trying to get leaders to start using is what 00:46:44.789 --> 00:46:47.869 we call the fourth coast. because we have the 00:46:47.869 --> 00:46:50.409 East Coast, we have the West Coast, we have the 00:46:50.409 --> 00:46:52.989 Gulf Coast, and then we have the Michigan Coast, 00:46:53.130 --> 00:46:56.210 the Great Lake Coast, right? So we have a lot 00:46:56.210 --> 00:46:58.449 of coast here that we can use where we can have 00:46:58.449 --> 00:47:02.110 shipyards. We have large bodies of water that... 00:47:02.190 --> 00:47:06.789 are protected where we can run experiments and 00:47:06.789 --> 00:47:09.730 figure some of this stuff out before sending 00:47:09.730 --> 00:47:12.550 it out on the high seas. And so we're trying 00:47:12.550 --> 00:47:16.190 to create a language about the fourth coast here 00:47:16.190 --> 00:47:19.030 in the Great Lakes where there's a lot of opportunity, 00:47:19.210 --> 00:47:22.250 a lot of skilled workers, a lot of talent in 00:47:22.250 --> 00:47:27.309 both manufacturing and engineering. And through 00:47:27.309 --> 00:47:31.130 that awareness, bring some of that business here 00:47:31.130 --> 00:47:36.670 to help the nation do what we need to do. Congress 00:47:36.670 --> 00:47:40.489 has to fund all this largely, except if you're 00:47:40.489 --> 00:47:44.210 talking on the commercial side. But this is a 00:47:44.210 --> 00:47:48.469 long -term problem. It takes both shipbuilding, 00:47:48.690 --> 00:47:52.449 yards, and facilities, but it also requires the 00:47:52.449 --> 00:47:54.989 right type of people. And I think that's where 00:47:54.989 --> 00:47:59.889 I want to go next is... Talk about your view, 00:48:00.250 --> 00:48:02.449 because you've sat at the top of this thing looking 00:48:02.449 --> 00:48:06.969 down, about what we should be doing in terms 00:48:06.969 --> 00:48:10.449 of getting more people interested in shipbuilding 00:48:10.449 --> 00:48:15.110 and the maritime industry as a career. Great 00:48:15.110 --> 00:48:19.369 question. Yeah, I mean, nobody thinks about, 00:48:19.630 --> 00:48:23.110 at least in the Midwest necessarily, about a 00:48:23.110 --> 00:48:26.900 maritime shipbuilding career being in the trades, 00:48:26.920 --> 00:48:30.400 and there's a lot of trades that have to be involved 00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:34.099 here. You're working on part of that pipeline 00:48:34.099 --> 00:48:37.059 at engineering schools, but part of that pipeline 00:48:37.059 --> 00:48:41.860 is not straight up PhDs, is it? It's really the 00:48:41.860 --> 00:48:45.619 trades. A little bit of yes to all. So actually, 00:48:46.019 --> 00:48:48.280 yeah, you started sparking some neurons, so thank 00:48:48.280 --> 00:48:54.039 you for that. I think what the largest problem 00:48:54.349 --> 00:48:58.010 we have in terms of getting folks into these 00:48:58.010 --> 00:49:04.449 trades and disciplines is simply awareness. So 00:49:04.449 --> 00:49:07.909 part of it for the Midwest, for the state of 00:49:07.909 --> 00:49:11.429 Michigan, for the Great Lake region is we have 00:49:11.429 --> 00:49:14.969 great manufacturers from the auto industry to 00:49:14.969 --> 00:49:18.230 others. We know how to build stuff here. We did 00:49:18.230 --> 00:49:19.949 it in World War II. We haven't forgotten that, 00:49:20.090 --> 00:49:23.579 right? We still know how to do that here. Part 00:49:23.579 --> 00:49:26.480 of what I've discovered in the two years here 00:49:26.480 --> 00:49:30.420 in Ann Arbor is people just aren't aware. We 00:49:30.420 --> 00:49:33.420 call it sea blindness. Many people aren't aware 00:49:33.420 --> 00:49:39.179 of the maritime trades and that 70 % of the world 00:49:39.179 --> 00:49:43.610 is ocean, 80 % of the population of the world 00:49:43.610 --> 00:49:47.889 lives within 100 miles of the coast. 90 % of 00:49:47.889 --> 00:49:50.829 international trade goes by water and like over 00:49:50.829 --> 00:49:55.289 95 % of data goes in undersea cables, right? 00:49:55.610 --> 00:49:59.429 It's all happening in the background that we 00:49:59.429 --> 00:50:01.469 in the sea services are kind of running the world, 00:50:01.650 --> 00:50:03.670 but we're just letting it happen. We're just 00:50:03.670 --> 00:50:06.329 moving goods and making things happen. And it 00:50:06.329 --> 00:50:09.900 doesn't really hit the news until a ship uh goes 00:50:09.900 --> 00:50:12.239 aground in the Suez Canal and brings everything 00:50:12.239 --> 00:50:14.639 to a halt and then you know Amazon deliveries 00:50:14.639 --> 00:50:17.579 don't get here right now we now we care now we 00:50:17.579 --> 00:50:21.039 care yeah right and so I found true awareness 00:50:21.039 --> 00:50:26.320 and and awareness of the opportunity uh right 00:50:26.320 --> 00:50:28.940 so so here in the College of Engineering you 00:50:28.940 --> 00:50:33.960 know any uh I'll say average high school senior 00:50:33.960 --> 00:50:36.139 gets accepted here to the College of Engineering. 00:50:36.559 --> 00:50:38.500 They immediately, they already know, well there's 00:50:38.500 --> 00:50:40.840 aeronautical engineering, there's civil engineering, 00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:43.219 there's mechanical engineering, chemical engineering. 00:50:43.900 --> 00:50:46.360 Nobody really knows that there is this thing 00:50:46.360 --> 00:50:49.699 called naval engineering. It's its own discipline 00:50:49.699 --> 00:50:52.639 that has its own specialties that does this really 00:50:52.639 --> 00:50:55.280 cool thing. Build the ships that make the world 00:50:55.280 --> 00:50:59.119 go round. and move 90 % of the goods that we 00:50:59.119 --> 00:51:01.739 look at in our houses every day. And so just 00:51:01.739 --> 00:51:03.760 giving them that awareness and that there's opportunity. 00:51:03.980 --> 00:51:06.579 There are jobs and actually well -paying jobs 00:51:06.579 --> 00:51:10.639 that contribute to that. Like people convert 00:51:10.639 --> 00:51:13.699 because it's fun, right? These ships, right? 00:51:14.099 --> 00:51:18.099 If you like... complication and complexity right 00:51:18.099 --> 00:51:21.460 I mean it's a floating city it moves it's got 00:51:21.460 --> 00:51:26.219 sanitation it's got recreation it's got you know 00:51:26.219 --> 00:51:29.420 mission equipment right that like firefighting 00:51:29.420 --> 00:51:31.360 police everything that you need a short like 00:51:31.360 --> 00:51:34.079 put it on a ship and make it move around the 00:51:34.079 --> 00:51:36.780 world right it's it's it's fun to me at least 00:51:36.780 --> 00:51:40.769 the complexity is fun Well, it certainly is a 00:51:40.769 --> 00:51:43.469 complex system. The bigger they are, the more 00:51:43.469 --> 00:51:45.730 complex they are. And you're a guy who's been 00:51:45.730 --> 00:51:47.969 thinking about, well, what's this going to look 00:51:47.969 --> 00:51:50.909 like 15 years from now or 20 years from now? 00:51:51.889 --> 00:51:58.849 The speed of innovation on weapons systems and 00:51:58.849 --> 00:52:02.670 electronic systems and propulsion systems is 00:52:02.670 --> 00:52:05.900 really quite amazing. And I would think that's 00:52:05.900 --> 00:52:08.239 where a lot of the excitement that maybe people 00:52:08.239 --> 00:52:12.300 don't understand is there's all this technology 00:52:12.300 --> 00:52:17.559 happening. Correct and along those lines and 00:52:17.559 --> 00:52:21.739 along the lines of Midwest sort of you know, 00:52:21.860 --> 00:52:24.599 Fourth Coast versus East Coast, West Coast, Gulf 00:52:24.599 --> 00:52:30.579 Coast something else we need to realize 70 % 00:52:30.579 --> 00:52:34.539 of the value of a ship is created outside the 00:52:34.539 --> 00:52:37.539 shipyard. So it would be great to have shipyards 00:52:37.539 --> 00:52:39.960 here and build ships in Fincantieri, right? Up, 00:52:40.280 --> 00:52:42.440 you know, at our sort of northern border there 00:52:42.440 --> 00:52:44.920 with, you know, I guess the southern border of 00:52:44.920 --> 00:52:48.340 the northern peninsula, right? There with Wisconsin, 00:52:48.579 --> 00:52:52.280 right? So they build frigates up there and that's 00:52:52.280 --> 00:52:56.880 great. And having shipyards is great, but 70 00:52:56.880 --> 00:52:59.579 % of the value doesn't need to be at a shipyard, 00:52:59.639 --> 00:53:01.739 right? We can build pieces and parts. We can 00:53:01.739 --> 00:53:04.440 build... pumps, we can build skids, we can build 00:53:04.440 --> 00:53:08.440 pipes and other things here in the Midwest to 00:53:08.440 --> 00:53:11.699 go to shipyards and help them be more efficient 00:53:11.699 --> 00:53:15.179 and effective at final assembly, so to speak. 00:53:15.780 --> 00:53:20.269 So just incredible. opportunity in that sense 00:53:20.269 --> 00:53:23.989 as well here in the Midwest to really add value 00:53:23.989 --> 00:53:26.269 into the supply chain for these things, whether 00:53:26.269 --> 00:53:29.329 or not the shipyard is actually here. And so 00:53:29.329 --> 00:53:32.250 incredible opportunity for the trades, incredible 00:53:32.250 --> 00:53:35.849 opportunity for engineers, and I think just some 00:53:35.849 --> 00:53:39.590 of that awareness of being able to get into this 00:53:39.590 --> 00:53:43.010 business and industry is something that will 00:53:43.010 --> 00:53:46.619 help tremendously. You know real interesting 00:53:46.619 --> 00:53:49.639 I would never have guessed that percentage You 00:53:49.639 --> 00:53:53.059 know 70 % of the values from stuff built outside 00:53:53.059 --> 00:53:56.039 the shipyard. That's a very interesting way to 00:53:56.039 --> 00:53:58.940 think about it Let me switch gears to something 00:53:58.940 --> 00:54:03.219 else that you mentioned you mentioned What's 00:54:03.219 --> 00:54:07.860 the future of unmanned Vehicles that the Navy 00:54:07.860 --> 00:54:15.400 might use So there is I think that we recognize 00:54:15.400 --> 00:54:20.019 that that is an important piece of the capability 00:54:20.019 --> 00:54:23.800 that we need to build in our future fleet. That 00:54:23.800 --> 00:54:30.639 there are some jobs and some missions that are 00:54:30.639 --> 00:54:34.840 inherently conducted by humans, especially when 00:54:34.840 --> 00:54:37.579 you get to a point where you're pressing a button, 00:54:38.199 --> 00:54:39.940 where something launches and goes somewhere, 00:54:40.719 --> 00:54:44.630 right? But there are other... levels of automation, 00:54:45.150 --> 00:54:50.050 levels of autonomy for steering, for navigation, 00:54:51.989 --> 00:54:56.670 for machinery operation, where there are some 00:54:56.670 --> 00:55:03.489 incredible benefits that unmanned vessels or 00:55:03.489 --> 00:55:06.920 autonomy bring for the United States Navy. I 00:55:06.920 --> 00:55:10.579 get the sense the commander, Dr. Page, was being 00:55:10.579 --> 00:55:14.860 coy and didn't want to go too far into the Navy's 00:55:14.860 --> 00:55:18.820 plans for unmanned vessels, probably a subject 00:55:18.820 --> 00:55:22.239 for the future. And we didn't actually get to 00:55:22.239 --> 00:55:25.320 talk about how artificial intelligence or AI 00:55:25.320 --> 00:55:27.559 factors into the Navy plan, so we'll have to 00:55:27.559 --> 00:55:30.599 have them back. Hope you enjoyed these two stories 00:55:30.599 --> 00:55:35.039 on naval history, naval future, some things to 00:55:35.039 --> 00:55:38.079 think about in terms of the United States National 00:55:38.079 --> 00:55:42.239 Defense and some of what's occurring throughout 00:55:42.239 --> 00:55:45.079 the world and why it's important that Congress 00:55:45.079 --> 00:55:48.059 fund and that communities support and people 00:55:48.059 --> 00:55:53.099 support naval shipyards. So a great discussion. 00:55:53.260 --> 00:55:55.320 We're closing out the year here. Can't believe 00:55:55.320 --> 00:55:59.059 another one's gone by. And until next time, when 00:55:59.059 --> 00:56:02.519 Dale Throneberry is back and we get into 2026, 00:56:02.980 --> 00:56:05.260 we want to thank you for listening to Veterans 00:56:05.260 --> 00:56:08.179 Radio. I'm Jim Fossone. You can find our podcasts 00:56:08.179 --> 00:56:11.960 and things at veteransradio .org. And until next 00:56:11.960 --> 00:56:15.239 time on Veterans Radio, you are dismissed.