Far East Cynic

In front of Yanmashita park in Yokohama, located on the waterfront, the NYK ship Hikawamaru is moored as a floating museum. She recently celebrated her 80th birthday. The 11,622 ton Hikawa Maru was built in 1929 by Yokohama Dock Co – yard 177, for the Nippon Yusen KK line, Tokyo.

She was launched on September 30, 1929 and completed on April 25, 1930. She commenced on her maiden voyage from Kobe to Seattle on May 13. She offered fine service combined with superb food which saw her become a much sought after ship and passengers gave her the nickname “Queen of the Pacific.”

The following video tells the story of 87 year old Ichiro Yoshimura and Mia Ishimaru, who met while serving on the ship:

80 years
Uploaded by ladyanaka33. – Explore international webcam videos.

A rough translation of the scenes as follows: The video opens with scenes from the 80th anniversary celebration and explains about a special tour of the insides of the ship that are being given that day. Ichiro is then introduced who says he has many memories of the ship. The video then shifts to the history of the ship, commissioned in 1930 she was known as the “Queen of the Northern Pacific”. She was converted to a hospital ship in 1941 and served as such through the war. The story quickly covers its service during the war and then points out that after the war it was used to bring troops home to the US and Japan. A picture of the young Yoshimura-san is shown. A picture of young Ishimaru-san is shown and then she talks about the large net that the soldiers used to climb up the side to board the ship. There is a scene ( with the orange subtitles) where the woman points out how stupid war is, “isnt it?”. The video points out that over 28,000 people were returned home in a year and a half-on this ship. Following scenes showing the troops coming home-it relates the story of how the ship returned to passenger service and then was taken out of service in 1960. She was a youth hostel, and a museum and beer garden, but was closed in 2002 due to dwindling visitors. NYK restored the ship in 2007 and she re-opened. Yoshimura-san closes the video by announcing how happy he is to see the ship restored to her once great appearance.

Meg from the TV show “Family Guy” that is. This is Mila Kunis, the girl who does the voice of Meg:

She’s also on the list of eight hot babes who play “World of Warcraft“. Who said video games are just for geeks?

From where you would expect it to come from-across the pond.

I am of mixed feelings about the Arizona immigration law. On the one hand,border security needs to be tightened up-we need to start having immigration checks both ways in and out of the country and if you get stopped for breaking the law and are found to be here illegally-then you get sent packing.

At the same time-the idea that you have to produce your “papers” just because a cop thinks you are suspicious-well that does smack of something un-American. It makes Arizona no better than the stinking Chinese.

The situations are different in one obvious way. In contrast to law-enforcement officers in Arizona, the Chinese authorities didn’t have to waste time wondering whether I was a citizen. One glance told them where I stood. (I understand that there are some Caucasian-looking Chinese citizens, but they are scarce.) The only judgment call was whether they should bother to check whether, well, my “papers were in order,” in the phrase we all know from WW II movies.

If they had checked very often, I would have been in trouble. In theory, foreigners are always supposed to carry their passports (as Chinese citizens are supposed to carry their identity cards). In practice, I almost never did. When checking in for a flight or registering at a hotel in China, sure: Without a passport, you couldn’t do either thing. But when at “home” in Shanghai or Beijing my wife and I kept our passports in our apartment’s safe. The theoretical risk of being asked for documents was outweighed by the truly dire potential consequences of our passports getting lost or stolen.

I’ve been in a similar situation-and I was also witness to watching the Chinese police hassle any woman with a Filipino or Indonesian face in Hong Kong.

So much of the discussion about immigration is rooted in fear-not facts. Consider here, in my current “adopted” hellhole  state of residence of Alabama. A candidate for Governor (Tim James) is campaigning for office by saying that driver’s test should only be given in English.  Since the S.O. ( who took her driver’s test in Japanese, is a legal resident  in this country, and does speak English-but was more comfortable taking the test for something pretty important in her native language) is affected by this law-I pointed out to her how it was an attack on her, not just the  Mexicans who build the houses down the street. I wonder how Mr James would feel if he was in Japan-and had to deal with ATM’s that were only printed in Kanji. Something tells me he would be pissed off. Then again, in Japan, you can still get around without a car. Not so in the tea bag loving state of Alabama-where everything is spread out and public transportation is a fiction. Furthermore,  there’s nothing he can do about the tests. It was a federal order. He knows this.

Which brings us to words about immigration you should be hearing-from the Economist:

Many people have observed how the networks of overseas Chinese and Indians benefit their respective motherlands. Diasporas speed the flow of information: an ethnic Chinese trader in Indonesia who spots a commercial opportunity will quickly alert his cousin who runs a factory in Guangdong. And ties of kin, clan or dialect ensure a high level of trust. This allows decisions to be made swiftly: multimillion-dollar deals can sometimes be sealed with a single phone call. America is linked to the world in a different way. It does not have much of a diaspora, since native-born Americans seldom emigrate permanently. But it has by far the world’s largest stock of immigrants, including significant numbers from just about every country on earth. Most assimilate quickly, but few sever all ties with their former homelands.

Which as Lexington points out-can be too our benefit:

Immigration provides America with legions of unofficial ambassadors, deal-brokers, recruiters and boosters. Immigrants not only bring the best ideas from around the world to American shores; they are also a conduit for spreading American ideas and ideals back to their homelands, thus increasing their adoptive country’s soft power.

Arizona’s law is sure to be struck down in the courts soon-and most probably deservedly so. However it has definitely highlighted the need to deal with immigration problem-just as the nation needs to deal with its other problems. These are a much greater threat than the Podunk nation of Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet, look where we invest our resources.

UPDATE!: The S.O. reminded me that part of what James said is a lie-the applicant must be prepared to take the driving test with a tester who speaks English, and interpreters are not allowed to go on the test drive.  She had a heck of a time with the lady who gave her the driving portion of the test ( her Japanese licence did not count for diddly when we got here)-because the woman spoke with a southern drawl that was pretty thick.  “Alabamaese” throws her for a loop-she is used to people who actually speak proper English.

The fine folks who brought you all 64 colors, of course!

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UPDATE! WTF happened to the video-did Crayola get pissed or did the tea baggers make her lose her job too?

Sen Jim Webb that is:

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., is pressing the Defense Department for justification of why the military has so many flag and general officers, and he also wants to know why the military is paying salary and tuition assistance to officers on loan to some Washington, D.C., think tanks.

The requests for information from Webb, a Marine veteran and former Defense Department official who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services personnel subcommittee, appear remarkably similar to the efforts of another military veteran, former Sen. John Glenn, D-Ohio, who once headed the same subcommittee.

Glenn, a retired Marine and former astronaut who headed what was then called the military personnel subcommittee from 1987 to 1994, launched an overhaul of flag and general officer policy after he began asking why the number of senior officers was not dropped at the same rate as the size of the force in the post-Cold War drawdown. Glenn also forced changes in the military’s fellowship program, which basically loaned military officers and civilians to members of Congress to be staffers.

Webb said Wednesday that he is just asking questions at this point.

In the case of flag and general officers, Webb said he wants an explanation why the number of senior officers continues to grow. He has not concluded there are too many, but is asking why there are so many, and what exactly they are all doing. Those kinds of questions began Glenn’s multi-year push to reduce the number of admirals and generals, which he based on the officer-to-enlisted ratio and termed “brass creep.”

Defense Department statistics show there were 38 four-stars, 149 three-stars, 299 two-stars and 464 one-stars on active duty at the end of March.

Brass creep-or ass creep?

He’s probably barking up the wrong tree about the fellowships-they do provide a positive return for the services and more importantly they provide a venue for senior officers to mingle with people who influence political decision making. That’s probably a good thing in the long term.

But complaining about having too many flags? Right on the mark.

The US Navy has more flag officers than it has ships. It has flag officers holding positions that were long held by Captains. To justify this flag creep-it has had re-organization after re-organization, like the at the place I used to work-which was and should be an O-6 command. Yet they got sucked into a flag staff, the current incumbent has used and abused these people mightily. ( Yes Grunie-I’m talking about you!).

Good for Senator Webb. However to get anywhere-he is going to have to turn up the heat and ask for more information from the senior flags who have helped this situation along.

Or the dog gets it.

And we would not want that to happen would we? Especially when this book will make you a lot smarter about the world you live in. And unlike Sarah Palin’s book-you can rest assurred that there were no ghost writers at work here. Steeljaw Scribe is one of the writers in the book: Securing Freedom in the Global Commons.

Details here-and as an extra added incentive, you will be giving SJS a chance to lord it over me that he has money from his “book deal” when I talk to him every week. Surely that’s worth a few bucks in entertainment value alone.

Details here.

This is just totally unbelievable:

The Oklahoma Legislature voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to override vetoes of two highly restrictive abortion measures, one making it a law that women undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before having an abortion.Though other states have passed similar measures forcing women to have ultrasounds, Oklahoma’s law goes further, requiring a doctor or technician to set up the monitor where the woman can see it and describe the heart, limbs and organs of the fetus. No exceptions are made for rape and incest victims. 

The second measure passed into law Tuesday protects doctors from malpractice suits if they decide not to inform the parents of a unborn baby that the fetus has birth defects. The intent of the bill is to prevent parents from later suing doctors who withhold information to try to influence them against having an abortion.

In effect, the government of the state of Oklahoma has made it perfectly legal for doctors-who will not have to live with the results-to have a carte blanche to lie to their patients.

Sorry-this goes beyond the pale of any reasonable interpretation-none whatsoever.

And stuck with a really lousy deal in the process. You think Obama has problems? Try being the current Prime Minister of Japan:

The Hatoyama government is neither radical nor anti-U.S.; nor is the man himself. But they seem determined to prove the old proverb that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. They started “negotiations” with neither a vision of the destination nor a road map to get there. I put the word “negotiations” in quotation marks because Washington has hardly been involved yet in serious discussions, except to repeat that while it thinks the 2006 agreement is the best plan, it is prepared to listen to suggestions.

Hatoyama has been ditherer-in-chief in internal discussions on the Japanese side. Rather than asserting himself as a leader with a plan or an orchestrator of smooth and sensible discussions, he has allowed a dangerous profusion of voices to sway the arguments, some with little concern for political, military or practical reality.

Inside the government the smaller parties have sought to dictate terms. The leader of one minor party, who has a tiny following, would like U.S. troops out of Okinawa and Japan altogether. Government members have spent time and money exploring Okinawa, Guam and other stretches of the Pacific to see where they could send the U.S. troops. They got no takers, with Guam pointedly saying that it could not accommodate more than the 8,000 marines it has agreed to take once the Futenma closure is complete.

Want it bad-get it bad.

Something that occurred to me-and has bothered me for a long time, is the idea that somehow one generation of serving military is somehow superior to another.

I hate to break it to you-but in the Navy, for a LONG TIME, a lot of great Sailors were out there doing the nation’s business. Long before yellow ribbons were in fashion, Sailors were on station-in hazard like LT Silberman, and showing up for watch, for work, for a brief, or for an UNREP or General Quarters.

One particular thing that REALLY bothers me-and military people of the later generations are sometimes guilty of this- is the disdain that some of the current generation hold the Sailors who manned the fleet during the 1970′s. The popular perception is , not unlike some people feel about folks during the Vietnam era, is that we were all drug addled, pleasure seekers-who were somehow inferior to the new “greatest generation”

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!. It is just not true.  I’ll let you in on a secret-95%+ of the people on active duty during those years-showed up for work on time, got underway when they were supposed to, and spent a lot of time at sea showing the flag for the United States and launching aircraft, driving ships, or submerging in defense of the United States. I’ll bet if I had the stats- the number of mast cases and other leading indicators was the same or lower. Sure drugs were an issue-but the Navy is a reflection of the nation. And that was the nation then.

And some of them did not come back.

That’s not to diss on the contributions that our Soldiers and Sailors, Airmen and Marines have made in the first decade of the 21st century. But I’m here to tell you that the Sailors of the 70′s worked pretty “f-ing” hard then too-and many of the innovations and safety procedures that today are taken for granted-were bought with their blood.

I made my first embarkation on a Navy ship in 1976-and while there were problems in those days, the USS Paul Foster never missed a commitment during the time I was aboard her. Neither did the USS Nimitz or about every other ship in the Navy in those days. And there were a lot more Sailors and ships.

I’m just saying-everybody works hard.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

I’ve waited a while to write about this-as I wanted to put some space between the event and the commentary. A lot of readers are probably already familiar with the basics, namely the tragic loss of LT Steve Zilberman, USN of Columbus, Ohio in an aircraft mishap in the North Arabian sea. The aircraft was returning from an Airborne Command and Control mission over Afghanistan when it developed problems and the crew had to bailout.

The details of what caused the mishap are still under investigation-but it appears as if, LT Zilberman found himself in the position of flying the aircraft in order to keep it in a stable configuration while his crew bailed out. What I think has not been accurately told-except within the service community, is how truly frightening it had to be for him and the rest of his crew and how much of a debt of gratitude the rest of us owe this young man for his courageous actions on that horrible day.

I want you to remember this statement as I work through this post, its meaning will become apparent in a couple of paragraphs:

The new propeller is quieter, with less vibration on the airframe and equipment. It provides a little more SHP. It is virtually impossible to pitchlock, since the 8 blades can feather with loss of hydraulic oil pressure. One of the interesting performance attributes of the new prop is the reduced noise inside the airplane. The pilots and crew are able to hear noises they have never heard before. But the problem is, they don’t know if these noises have always been there and they were unable to hear them because of the noise of the old props, or if the new noises are related to the new props

There is that word again: pitchlock. What does it mean? Let me explain. In a turboprop aircraft, the jet engine it has turns at a constant RPM or 100%. When you add power by moving the throttles forward, the engine is not turning any faster. What is happening is that the propellers are changing their pitch to take a larger “bite” of air and thus “pull” the aircraft through the air faster. The changing of the pitch of the propeller is accomplished normally through a hydraulic system in aircraft like the E-2 where the propellers are big and the engine nacelle is too.

The E-2 used to have a four bladed prop. It was similar to the C-130 in some ways and has a variant of the P-3 engine attached to it. The decision was made to go to an eight blade propeller in order to reduce vibration and noise as was stated above. It was also supposed to be easier to maintain since now-individual blades could be changed right on the flight deck-whereas under the “old” system I grew up with,a prop change was a major evolution require the aircraft to be moved to the hangar bay, the new prop “built-up” and balanced, and then the aircraft had to do a low and high power turn on the flight deck and a Functional Check Flight. If you have ever served on an aircraft carrier-you will know that stringing together that series of events is never easy.

If the hydraulic fluid that moves the propeller to its desired pitch is lost or is in the process of being pumped overboard ( e.g. as in a leak) there is a set of teeth that will engage with each other to lock the aircraft propeller into whatever pitch it failed at. It has to be that way because otherwise the propeller would randomly pitch as it moved through the slip stream.  That is bad. C-2s and E-2s have a pitchlock system built into the propellers to “help” the pilot if a propeller loses hydraulic fluid. Unlike the T-34, which has a spring assembly that will drive the prop to feather in the event of a failure, the C-2 and E-2 need hydraulic pressure inside the prop to drive the prop to feather. The pitchlock system is supposed to prevent the prop from going to flat pitch in the event that all the prop fluid is lost.

At least that is how it supposed to work-however if this happens at a low power setting, the prop is going to be at an angle just shy of being perpendicular to the slip stream. E-2 pilots refer to it as flying with a barn door attached to the aircraft. During my time in the community-probably after a fire ( which was a big deal when I was coming into my command tour, as the community had had several), this was the most feared emergency there was. Because the pilot always faced a dilemma, when and if he could shut the engine down and could he get back aboard if he did? Not to mention that if the aircraft pitchlocks at a low blade angle the ability to control the aircraft becomes sporting-to say the least.

So now lets return to the situation that the VAW-121 aircraft found itself in that day:

So after one engine lost oil pressure and then failed completely; after one propeller couldn’t be adjusted to balance the plane; after it was clear that there was no way to safely land, Zilberman ordered his crew to bail out.

He manually kept the Hawkeye stable as it plummeted toward the water, which allowed the three other men to escape.

Time ran out before he could follow.

Zilberman, 31, was declared dead three days later.

On Thursday, more than 250 sailors, officers, aviators and friends gathered to pay tribute to Zilberman at the Norfolk Naval Station chapel.

His widow, Katrina, was presented the Distinguished Flying Cross that her husband was awarded posthumously.

My stomach hurts just thinking about it. What I hope to make you understand is just how gut wrenching this whole sequence of events had to be, and the real courage and presence of mind it took to do this.

When you bailout of an E-2, there is no ejection seat. You strap into the seat, release from it with the parachute attached to your back via a torso harness and then you have to shuffle about 20 feet to the main cabin door and roll out of the hatch.

The pilots? They have a few things to do to get ready for that. Level the wings ( if they can), call the ship,  broadcast their position——oh, and as an extra added bonus,  deal with the  emergency that put them in extremis to begin with.

I want you to think about it, the LT as the Plane Commander- had to know he was in a bad situation. So did the rest of the crew.  For him to get out, he would have to set the auto-pilot and then  hope that he could get the distance to the door, before the aircraft most probably forced the auto-pilot to kick off line and then,  in all probability,  stall and depart controlled flight soon there after. In which case the aircraft noses over and getting to the door is the equivalent of climbing a flat wall with no hand holds.

Assuming he had the altitude left to have time to do so.

And now remember this-he had to know all of these facts when he ordered the bailout.

But what about the ditching hatches,  you ask. ( There are three on the aircraft, two over the cockpit and one over the Air Control Officers seat). What about them? Besides the fact that its doubtful you can fit out them with a parachute on-there is this little matter of an eight bladed mixer turning out there and the laws of inertia.  There is only one way out. Getting out of an E-2 that was sitting still on deck when we practiced bailouts was hard.  Out of balanced flight, with the pilots working to maintain control?

Terrifying.

Yet this young man did it-and three men are alive today because of him. There can be no question of his devotion to his duty and his courage. He’s a hero in every sense of the word-and the Navy and the United States have suffered a terrible loss.

Questions can and should be asked, however, about the system that put this crew in that gut wrenching situation that day. I’ve got three to be precise.

One: This is the third major prop related mishap in the past two years. This is a known problem.  It begs the question of what is being done in terms of training, and more importantly material solutions to fix what appears to be a big issue with a system that “wasn’t supposed to work this way”. Sorry, I kind of keep thinking of watching  a similar situation play out in the early 1990′s with respect to fires on the aircraft.  Go back and ask someone who was in the community then about how many aircraft were lost in a three year period. And more importantly-why are not flag officers in the Naval Air Systems command screaming bloody murder about this?

Maybe they are-the skeptic in my mind kind of doubts it-I’ve seen this drama before.

Two: Why is the US Navy-after some 50 + years of being the jet age, and the advances that have taken place in propulsion systems, still operating aircraft with propellers on the carrier? Jet engines don’t pitch lock-more importantly they would have provided some definite tactical advantages f0r the E-2 in the current operational environments it is operating in. Better dash to station, the ability to accelerate to more reasonable airspeeds for the coming innovation of air refueling to the E-2 and most importantly-it would eliminate a huge hazard to personnel operating on the flight deck.

When I got to my first fleet squadron, they were just two months away from an incident where a blue shirt got chopped to smithereens by a turning propeller when he turned the wrong way after removing a huffer hose. Kid was 20 years old. In the intervening 30 years I can think of at least two other similar mishaps and five others where the propeller struck something metal on the flight deck sending shrapnel through the skin of the aircraft.

Jet engines have their hazards too-I know this, but they also have their advantages.

Three: In conjunction with item two-why, after some forty years, has there not been a redesign of the crew placement in the aircraft to potentially allow the possible installation of ejection seats?  The dome is a problem I know-but ask yourself this, not every AEW aircraft is using a rotodome anymore. Phased array’s are the wave of the future.  And perhaps the dome could be moved slightly and the weight compensated for to allow for an ejection seat.

This is a pipe dream I know-because even as I write this, I can think of about five or six really insurmountable challenges from an engineering standpoint. At the same time-there have been marvelous advances in aircraft design and there were during my time, several unique attempts to convince the Navy to adopt a new airframe for the AEW mission. I was on the record as being in favor of that. I can also tell you that it was never considered a popular position-the P-3 community was not the only community that was fixated on one type of platform for it’s mission.

So let me state it again-I believe strongly that the E-2 could be redesigned into a twin engine jet aircraft with the crew positions to lined up like the Prowler or S-3 ( with canopies too!) and with the advances in avionics could still have the radar work in a manner to perform its mission. It probably would have looked like a “stretch” S-3. I remain convinced it could have been done.

It would cost a little bit of money to be sure-and that was something the leadership of Naval Aviation could not abide. There were after all boatloads of Hornets to buy and JSF.

Most of us, most of the time, live in blissful ignorance of what a small, elite, heroic group of Americans are doing for us night and day. As we speak, all over the globe, American Sailors, submariners and aviators are doing something very dangerous. ‘People say, Well, it can’t be too dangerous because there are no wrecks.’

But the reason we don’t have more accidents is that these are superb professionals; the fact that they master the dangers does not mean that the dangers aren’t real. Right now, somewhere around the world, young men (and women) are landing … aircraft on … pitching decks … at night! You can’t pay people to do that: they do it out of love of country, of adventure, of the challenge. We all benefit from it, and the very fact that we don’t have to think about it tells you how superbly they’re doing their job — living on the edge of dangers so the rest of us need not think about, let alone experience, danger.”-George Will.

If you did not see this slapdown of Fox News stooge, Bernie Goldberg:

It is worth a repeat-cause its funny.

Because they would have probably gotten the bejesus sued out of them:

Back on April 14th, Washington Post columnist Al Kamen wrote the following about the nuclear summit held in Washington:

By far the biggest loser of the extravaganza was the hapless and (in the opinion of some Obama administration officials) increasingly loopy Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He reportedly requested but got no bilat. The only consolation prize was that he got an “unofficial” meeting during Monday night’s working dinner. Maybe somewhere between the main course and dessert?

The Japanese government complained about the disrespect shown by the Washington Post in its use of the word “loopy,” but a few days ago Hatoyama admitted that he might actually be loopy.

With Hatoyama’s approval ratings plummeting, it would seem that some people agree about the loopyness. Ampontan writes about an online poll conducted by Nikkei:

To the question, Do you support the Hatoyama Cabinet, only 11.8% answered yes.

More interesting was the response to another question: “What do you think of the harsh criticism Prime Minister Hatoyama received from the American media during his American visit?”

A total of 84.7% of the respondents answered, “They took the words right out of my mouth.” (???)

Take comfort in this fact:

Before you have to trade them for health care.

To hate Congress:

Frustrated by continuing prostitution at “juicy bars” that cater to American troops in South Korea — and what he calls “weak” monitoring by commanders — the co-chairman of the U.S. Congressional Caucus on Human Trafficking plans to introduce legislation that would create a senior position in the Department of Defense to enforce the department’s prohibitions against the exploitation of women.

U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said he will propose the appointment of an assistant secretary for trafficking issues because he suspects that the policing of juicy bars near U.S. military installations varies “based on the commitment of the commanding officer.”

“Zero tolerance does not mean partial tolerance,” Smith told Stars and Stripes. “My concern … is that the important job of monitoring trafficking-related concerns has been added to somebody’s already too-large portfolio of work. What we [want is] a hub — a command and control center” led by an assistant secretary for trafficking issues in the DOD.

Smith had suggested the assistant secretary position in 2005 as part of a larger anti-trafficking proposal, but that measure was removed before the bill became law.

“The fact that juicy bars appear to be gaming the system in Korea is a sign that the monitoring is weak,” Smith said. “Juicy bars should be on their own watch list for the military, if not actually off-limits.”  [Stars & Stripes]

Like the Congress does not have anything to worry about back stateside-they have to extend their reach and the word “NO” to the right side of the international dateline.

ROK Drop has more detailed coverage on this at his place.  I predict a large increase in the number of leave chits to Thailand and the PI-where folks can at least have a week or so away from the courtesy patrols. Of course, given the recent events in both places-they are probably off limits too.

So what’s a red blooded young man on a one year unaccompanied tour to do? Oh yea, have sex with their fellow Soldiers, Sailors and Airman. Let me know how well that works out.