1975 - CVAN-68 (USS NIMITZ) Sea Trials Letter

This is the initial sea trial letter for CVAN-68 (now CVN-69) signed by Rickover. This particular letter is written to Col (ret) Robert Heinl, a historian and reporter for the Detroit News.

Text is shown below:

At Sea - North Atlantic

3 March 1975

USS NIMITZ (CVAN-68)

We are returning from the first sea trials of the USS NIMITZ (CVAN-68), our second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and our seventh nuclear-powered surface warship. The purpose of the trials was to demonstrate the performance of her new design two-reactor propulsion plant, which produces about as much power as the eight-reactor plants in the USS ENTERPRISE. The NIMITZ was built by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Virginia. Two more ships of this class, the DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVAN-69) and the CARL VINSON (CVAN-70), are also under construction at Newport News.

The NIMITZ has a length of 1,092 feet, a flight deck width of over 250 feet, and a combat load displacement of nearly 95,000 tons. She can operate and provide sustained support for a naval air wing of about 100 aircraft. Her initial nuclear cores will provide her with enough fuel to carry out operations for the next 13 years, making her truly independent of propulsion fuel logistic support. These cores contain energy equivalent to over two million tons of coal or 11 million barrels of oil—enough oil to fill a train of tank cars stretching from Washington to Boston.

Our first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS ENTERPRISE (CVAN-65), was delivered to the fleet in 1961. She operated for three years before her first refueling, including a 30,000-mile cruise around the world without logistic support in 1964. On this cruise, she was accompanied by the nuclear cruiser USS LONG BEACH (CGN-9) and the nuclear frigate USS BAINBRIDGE (DLGN-25). Following her first refueling, the ENTERPRISE operated for four years on her second set of reactor cores, including four deployments to Vietnam before her second refueling and overhaul in 1970. To date, the ENTERPRISE has steamed more than 750,000 miles. Her present reactor cores are expected to provide fuel for 10 to 13 years.

We now have five nuclear-powered guided-missile ships in operation: the cruiser USS LONG BEACH (CGN-9) and the frigates USS BAINBRIDGE (DLGN-25), USS TRUXTUN (DLGN-35), USS CALIFORNIA (DLGN-36), and USS SOUTH CAROLINA (DLGN-37). Three more nuclear-powered guided-missile frigates are under construction: the VIRGINIA (DLGN-38), the TEXAS (DLGN-39), and the MISSISSIPPI (DLGN-40). Congress has also appropriated funds to construct one more nuclear frigate of the VIRGINIA Class. Advance procurement funds have also been appropriated for another ship of this class.

The NIMITZ marks the renaissance of a modern nuclear-powered surface Navy—a Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz would have been proud to command. Admiral Nimitz took command of the Pacific Fleet on December 31, 1941, just 24 days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Through his brilliant leadership and outstanding skill as a strategist, the forces under his command were able to defeat the Japanese off Midway, thereby reversing the course of the war in the Pacific. It was, as General Marshall said, "the closest squeak and the greatest victory." The long march back across the Pacific ended on September 1, 1945, on the deck of the battleship MISSOURI in Tokyo Bay, when the Japanese surrender terms were signed. Fleet Admiral Nimitz signed for the United States.

Following World War II, Admiral Nimitz relieved Admiral Ernest J. King as Chief of Naval Operations, serving in that capacity until December 15, 1947. Ten days before he was relieved, Admiral Nimitz signed a letter I had prepared for his signature. This letter recommended to the Secretary of the Navy that "the Bureau of Ships and the Atomic Energy Commission work out a mutually agreeable method for prosecuting the design, development, and construction of a nuclear propulsion plant for a submarine." This was the first top-level Navy support I had received, and it started the nuclear propulsion program in the Navy.

Nuclear power in surface warships gives them the ability to operate continuously at high speed, affording them protection not available to non-nuclear ships. This could mean the difference between victory and defeat in battle. As the number of our advance bases decreases and the size of the fleet continues to shrink, the need for ships independent of the logistic umbilical cord for oil will continue to increase.

Next to providing the major deterrent to all-out nuclear war, I believe that the most important mission of our Navy is to ensure that our first-line naval striking forces can carry out their mission against threats potential enemies are presently developing. A significant portion of our major surface warships must be nuclear-powered, or we may end up without a credible deterrent to aggressions that do not warrant escalation to a nuclear war.

For the foreseeable future, the aircraft carrier will be the principal offensive striking arm of the Navy in a non-nuclear war. No other weapon system under development can replace the long-range, sustained, concentrated firepower of the carrier air wing. Nuclear submarines and nuclear surface ships with anti-air and anti-submarine capabilities are all needed to supplement and augment the capabilities of the nuclear carrier.

The U.S. Navy currently has 14 active aircraft carriers: the ENTERPRISE, eight oil-fired FORRESTAL Class large-deck carriers built in the 1950s and 1960s, three post-World War II MIDWAY Class carriers, and two World War II ESSEX Class carriers, the ORISKANY and the HANCOCK. This is about half the 24 carriers the U.S. Navy had at the beginning of the Vietnam War.

When the NIMITZ becomes fully operational in the fleet, she will replace one of the ESSEX Class carriers. When the EISENHOWER and VINSON join the fleet, the Navy will have only 12 carriers under 30 years of age. By 1981, when the CARL VINSON becomes fully operational in the fleet, the oldest large-deck carrier, the USS FORRESTAL, will be 26 years old. All of the Navy's older carriers will then be well over 30 years old.

It will be necessary to start building replacements for the FORRESTAL Class carriers soon, just to sustain a 12-carrier force. With the declining number of overseas U.S. bases and the decreasing number of carriers, it is important that the new carriers we build be as capable as possible. The NIMITZ and her sister ships are such carriers.

Our carriers are vulnerable to attack by Soviet sea-based cruise missiles, as are all surface ships. However, the first line of defense our surface ships have against such missiles and their launching platforms is carrier-based aircraft. Without carriers and their aircraft, other surface warships, replenishment ships, and amphibious forces would all be much more vulnerable. The nuclear carrier task force, with its capability of unlimited operation at high speed, is the most powerful and least vulnerable surface ship force in the history of naval warfare.

Some have objected to nuclear warships on the basis of higher initial investment cost. In this regard, it should be borne in mind that the total cost of conventional ships does not include the cost of oil. Recently, oil costs have risen dramatically. It costs more than $2 a barrel to buy, store, and deliver oil to Navy ships. At that rate, it would cost about $270 million to provide the amount of oil for a conventionally powered carrier equivalent to the nuclear fuel in the NIMITZ. That is almost three times the comparable cost of nuclear fuel for this type of ship.

Nuclear ships are often compared in cost with cheaper conventional ships of much less military capability, the argument being that we should build more of the cheaper conventional ships rather than fewer of the nuclear ships. Yet study after study has shown that when all costs are considered, nuclear warships cost little more than conventional warships with the same weapons systems, and the nuclear warships are far superior militarily.

Further, the cost of war itself far exceeds any cost needed to be prepared to prevent a war. The best warships we can build are those which are never used in combat because they have served to prevent war.

With the heavy military and non-military demands on its budget, the United States must only spend where it is necessary and where the value received is clear. But the real value of having a Navy capable of countering the Soviet threat cannot be measured in dollars alone; our survival may also depend on it.

The Soviets recognize the importance of becoming the world's strongest sea power. We have now chosen not to challenge them with numbers of ships. For this reason, it is essential that the ships we do build are the most powerful and effective weapons we know how to build. This means nuclear propulsion for major warships. The penalty for any other approach is the steady erosion of our conventional military forces, with the consequent reduction in our influence and our "options" in world affairs. The alternative is to rely for our security on nuclear weapons, whose use could mark the supreme failure of mankind.

Sincerely,

Hyman G. Rickover

Col R. D. Heinl

Detroit News