The USS Abraham Lincoln’s extended deployment has recently been in the news. The ship just left Guam.
Their last port call was a five-day port call in Thailand from Sept. 2-6.
How is Liberty managed for 5,000 sailors? Obviously some crew are needed on board at all times.
Would Liberty be handled in shifts? For example, 1,000 sailors each day?
Or is everyone granted Liberty at the same time? (Excluding the minimum crew requirements for the ship).
Would sailors that didn’t get shore leave automatically get it at the next scheduled port call?
For the veterans, are crew members still required to serve as shore police?
My dad was a Radioman in the 1950’s. He still had his baton and cuffs from shore police duty. He said it was a required duty at port calls. I never thought to ask if it was also required in home port, Pensacola.
Dad went into the Air Force in 1957. He wanted to be home with his family.
A port-of-call is designated as either a working port or a liberty port. For working ports, the entire crew works their regular working hours and then at liberty call gets to enjoy the locality unless they happen to be in that day’s duty section. Those unlucky folks work their regular working hours and are restricted to the ship until liberty call the following day.
For liberty ports, only the day’s duty section is restricted to the ship until the following morning’s Quarters call (like a morning formation for the Army).
As mentioned above, it’s not always the same number of duty sections for each department or even division on the ship. For aircraft carriers, the duty sections for the ports are determined by the commanding officers of the ship’s crew, the air wing, and other embarked units separately. That’s why you’ll hear at liberty call something similar to “Liberty call! Liberty call! Ship’s crew duty section 3, air wing duty section 2, liberty call, liberty call.”
The determination on who gets to go and how often depends on what needs to be done while the ship is in port.
As I recall from my time on submarines and cruisers, shore patrol assignments are left to the duty watch section, although I would imagine that larger ships have Masters at Arms assigned to the crew. As a spook, the only in port duties I was ever volunteered for involved needle guns and paint brushes or standing watch on the quarterdeck.