minor spoiler for “Flags of our Fathers”
–blank space–
–blank space–
–blank space–
In one scene, scores of transport ships are carrying the Marines to Iwo Jima and one young man falls overboard. The Marines all hoot and holler, thinking it’s great fun and the Navy will simply launch a boat to go pick up the Marine. Then they gradually realize no one is going to do anything because the convoy can’t afford to do anything that might slow it down.
Is this realistic?
Wouldn’t the ship – even if it couldn’t stop – launch a boat? Wouldn’t the next ship at least try to get a rope and lifesaver to the Marine?
It’s hard for me to believe they would be quite so cold-blooded.
I served in the Seabees, so my shipboard knowledge is limited, but when a “Man Overboard” call reaches the bridge, the helmsman marks the exact time. Then, if so ordered, they execute a turn base upon their location at the marked time, that will return the ship to the the area where the incident ocurred. This is impossible to do when operating in convoy without involving most of the other ships. If they are at war and on a specific mission, this would, almost surely, endanger many more lives. Launching a small boat would require that the ship stop, also disrupting the convoy.
So the answer to your question is yes, they would leave the man.
It might be possible for a following ship to throw him a line, but the chance of that is very slim.
In a convoy you have ships in front of you, behind you and on both sides.
If someone falls overboard, you can’t stop, as this would be a danger to the ships behind (collision), you can’t make a turn for the same reason.
Even if you did stop, you would quickly be outside the destroyer screen and a tempting tidbit for any IJN subs that were in the neighborhood.
You fall overboard in wartime in a convoy, you had better be one hell of a swimmer, as the nearest land is a looooooong way away.
Then there’s the question of whether the man overboard could survive long enough to be found, or, indeed, whether another vessel could actually find him. A previous thread here discusses the chances of surviving a fall from an Irish Sea ferry.
The last time I was aboard a Naval vessel was back in 1996. The procedure that one followed was the same as the previous one (which I transferred from in 1990) followed.
-Alert the Bridge that there’s a man overboard.
-Bridge announces “Man Overboard! Man Overboard!” (These announcements are made twice; however, in this little summary, I’ll just type them once. Cast your eyes over the type again for the full effect.)
-Bridge announces “Launch the Alert Helo! Launch the Rescue Boat (or whatever it was called)!”
-Bridge announces “All hands muster within five minutes. Report to your mustering station. Traffic to mustering station is up and forward, starboard; down and aft, port.” (This is to ensure that there really is somebody overboard and thus not needlessly putting the rescue folks’ lives in danger); the latter part is to ensure no traffic jams.)
-The Bridge determines how many ships need to turn around and if so, how.
-Once everyone’s accounted for and rescued, then some serious investigating goes on to see why the dude fell off the ship.
I think that’s pretty much it. Other seagoing types, feel free to fill in whatever I forgot.
Good point about the helos. I guess I was subconciously thinking WWII era, as that was the scenario cited in the OP. Of course you have to consider if the person could survive the fall w/o serious injury, avoid the ship’s screws, surface and stay afloat.
On the Carrier the procedure was pretty much as described by Monty with the twist that the Carrier never stops or slows down. We launch a fast whale Boat to recover the man overboard if possible and Helos to look for him and usually at least a frigate will maneuver to assist in the rescue as needed. In my 3+ years at sea, we had two men overboard. We never recovered the one 20 year old and I got to be the ship’s electrician in the whaleboat (Batteries to start the diesel engine) when we did rescue the other. This part was fun, especially after we rescued the fresh from A School Flight Deck Ape (Blue Shirt*) that got blown off. The only scary part was hooking back up to the boat harness and the sway of going up.
Jim
I can no longer remember, what rates were the blue shirts? I keep think the Tire Shop gang and maybe metallurgy?
During WWII troop transports didn’t stop for any reason other than a mechanical breakdown. I went overseas on the good ship Ile de France and we were told that falling overboard was death sentence. The ship wouldn’t stop nor would they send any message telling others where you were.
No only that, nothing was to be thrown overboard. They didn’t even like you spitting overboard. It was fairly late in the war but even then submarines were still enough of a threat to preclude any rescue attempt.
Technically, the nearest land is rarely more than a few miles away, never more than 7 miles away. Unfortunately much of the time it’s located below you. Of ocurse, everyone knows where the deepest point is located.
The Canadian Navy uses similar procedures to the ones described above, except that everyone holds their breath that the Sea King won’t just scatter parts on the person they’re trying to rescue. I never saw someone go overboard at sea, so I’ve only experienced drills. However, I was OOD when a nearby USN boat had to go through man overboard off the coast of Norway. That was scary, because we knew the unfortunate sailor wouldn’t survive long in the water. We launched our helo, but it wasn’t needed.
Thanks for all the info. I’m genuinely surprised. I would have thought there was some sort of Law of the Sea about doing everything possible to recover someone who went overboard. I’ve probably seen too many movies.
I looked it up:
Blue Shirts were the Plane Handlers, Aircraft elevator Operators, Tractor Drivers, Messengers and Phone Talkers
Purple = Aviation Fuels [nickname: “Grapes”]
Green = Catapult and arresting gear crews, Air wing maintenance personnel, Cargo-handling personnel, Ground Support Equipment (GSE) troubleshooters, Hook runners, Photographer’s Mates, Helicopter landing signal enlisted personnel (LSE) The Most Common color.
**Yellow ** = Aircraft handling officers, Catapult and Arresting Gear Officers & Plane directors
Red = Ordnancemen, Crash and Salvage Crews, Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD)
Brown = Air wing plane captains & Air wing line leading petty officers
White = Air wing quality control personnel, Squadron plane inspectors, Landing Signal Officer (LSO), Air Transfer Officers (ATO), Liquid Oxygen (LOX) crews, Safety Observers & Medical personnel
In the Reply to thread box, click the Insert Hyperlink icon (below the arrow of the SIZE tool, looks like a Globe and a Paperclip)
Enter the Text you want visible and hit OK and them paste in the hyper link and hit OK.
I think generally that is pretty much the case - as you can see there are many well-worked-out procedures for rescuing people who fall off naval ships. However, not to the extent endangering several hundred (or thousand) lives. In a convoy situation, you didn’t break formation for anything unless a raider got into the convoy. A man overboard or survivors from other vessels had to look after themselves. Even ships that were sinking or ablaze from stem to stern were left to their fate - and with good reason. Take a look at the history of convoy PQ17 to see what happens when convoys go wrong.
