U.S. COAST GUARD ORAL HISTORY
PROGRAM
Operation Noble Eagle Documentation Project
Attack on America: September 11, 2001 and the U.S. Coast Guard
Interviewee: Captain W.
Russell Webster, USCG
Chief of Operations, First Coast Guard
District
Interviewer: PAC Peter
Capelotti, USCGR
Date of Interview: 2 April 2002
Place: Conference room of the First District Commander
Boston, Massachusetts
Q: Captain
Sir, how long have you been in the Coast Guard?
CAPT Webster: I've been in the Coast
Guard almost 25 years now.
Q: And are you out of the Academy?
CAPT Webster: I'm a 1977 graduate of
the Coast Guard Academy.
Q: In fact that reminds me; I
interviewed one of your classmates this morning.
CAPT Webster: Who's that?
Q: Captain [Richard P.] Yatto [USCG].
CAPT Webster: Oh, Rick. Yes, he's a
good guy.
Q: And we had that same conversation
about history. Were you here that morning?
CAPT Webster: Yes, I was in the
District office that morning.
Q: And your position here at the 1st
District is?
CAPT Webster: Chief of Operations.
Q: Chief of Operations. When it
became clear that this was more than an accident and it was going to be
something serious, did the Admiral [Rear Admiral George N. Naccara, III,
USCG, Commander, First Coast Guard District] call you and his senior staff
together to try to figure out what the response was going to be?
CAPT Webster: Yes, I recall the Chief
of Staff and the Admiral getting us all together, and the early priority
from some of the early conversations we had, had to do with the Force
Protection Condition at our units protecting our people, and the decision
was made - I want to say within the first hour - to upgrade the FPCON; Force
Protection Condition, throughout the District. I believe throughout
the day it changed from the normal peacetime rating to what we eventually
ended up at towards the end of the day, at FPCON Delta; the most stringent
force protection condition available.
Q: What does that mean to a petty
officer down at [Coast Guard Station]
CAPT Webster: Well at a boat station
probably the biggest thing it means is that those same petty officers who
are going out as boarding officers and boarding team members -who were
directed very early on to provide an active presence to reassure the
American public of their safety and the fact that the Coast Guard was on the
job - that same talent pool was tapped to stand a gate guard duty and
protect the local Coast Guard facilities.
Q: That whole issue of presence is
important. I'm sure you've seen this over your career and I wonder how
it ties in with 9/11, is the way people respond to the Coast Guard as
opposed to say the Marines or the Navy. They seem to see the Coast
Guard differently because of this strange civilian/military . . .
CAPT Webster: The Coast Guard is what
I would characterize as a continuing local Federal presence, and we have,
what I would say, a unique role in providing initial disaster response on
the water irregardless of circumstance, whether it's a terrorist attack or
oil spills or mass casualty type events; airplane crashes. They're
used to the Coast Guard being first on-scene in a leadership role on the
water and I think that particular element is reassuring. I'm sure the
Admiral's told you and I've had similar experiences where in the days and
weeks after the
Q: I spoke to one of the [Coast
Guard] Strike Team guys - I think he's a warrant officer who has a lot
cutter time - and he said it's strange because in your cutter everybody
hates you because you're interfering with them trying to fish. You're
enforcing this treaty and you're capturing them smuggling drugs, so they
can't stand you. And he said that it was sort of a strange experience
for cuttermen to be in
CAPT Webster: I think that clearly the
Coast Guard is recognized as having that duality of role of being the same
guy that plucks you out of the water when you're in trouble and also the cop
on the beat or the Smokey of the sea. In this sense I think it takes it to a
new level where you not only have the diet of search and rescues bread and
butter, but you have this mission where our new diet is true grit. So I
think it was long standing in the eye of the public with this positive image
that I think went a long way when people were in a difficult circumstance.
Q: In terms of the Service itself;
this dichotomy, one of the things that was a shock to me coming on active
duty for the first time was not even being aware of this dichotomy between
the "O" [Operations] people and the "M" [Marine Safety]
people and that the "M" people don't have boats, and that if the
Captain of the Port needs to get across the harbor he calls the
"O" people to get him across the harbor.
CAPT Webster: Sure.
Q: And it's hard to explain to the
general public that the Coast Guard has to liaison with the Coast Guard in
certain circumstances. Is there going to be a point after 9/11 where
in the Marine Corps every Marine is a rifleman, is every Coastie going to
have to be trained to be a battle ready shore combatant, or do we have a
different role in border security?
CAPT Webster: I think there's a need
now more than ever before for us to parse off these new centurions of
Homeland Defense, because one of the biggest challenges I see right now -
and it's a major issue in the field right now - is the same guy who's out
there who is the life saver; the rescuer, the same guy who's going onboard
the recreational boat with his moccasins so that he doesn't scuff up the
deck today may be faced with the dilemma of going to our Level 6 continuum
of Use of Force; deadly force, on that same vessel in a very different
circumstance the following day, and I don't think it's fair right now to ask
our people to have not only the same breadth of knowledge they had before
about SAR [Search and Rescue], plus the 600-odd fisheries regulations, but
now a whole new domestic terrorism continuum Use of Force, and I think the
time is probably right for us to address that by creating this new legion of
people who are specifically trained to act in certain ways.
Q: Would it still be called U.S. Coast
Guard? It seems that there's this tension between the life savers; the
offshore folks, and now you've got Port Security, which has reemerged bigger
than it has been since the Second World War. And starting off as a
Reservist at MSO [Marine Safety Office]
CAPT Webster: I'm not sure. I
don't have the answers. I clearly sense this tension that you talk
about but I also have to deal with the impact from the field commanders, and
clearly at this stage, six plus months after the World Trade Center attacks,
their top priority issue is we now have this additional cadre of skills,
knowledge and experience that has to be shoved into a new rating. A
new rating, by the way, that is amalgamating with Quartermasters, RDs [Radarman]
and others now. It may be time to be more like the Department of
Defense with a specialty corps and that may just mean reconstituting a PSU
like rating.
Q: Yes. Did 9/11 exacerbate or
accelerate the consideration of these issues in your mind, and throughout
the Service?
CAPT Webster: Clearly. I was the
team leader for the Joint Ratings Review that came up with a scheme of the
new sets of ratings that were accelerated anyway. Those ratings were
accelerated by a preponderance of domestic tragedies like Morning Dew,
Q: Yes.
CAPT Webster: And certainly as many
studies as that particular team looked at they did not consider a future
world that had terrorism, or Maritime Homeland Security, as one of its
primary pivot points for the Service.
Q: So you don't think it would be
necessarily wise that a Coast Guard boarding would be a Coast Guard boarding
would be a Coast Guard boarding, regardless of Aunt Millie and her sailboat
or a potential terrorist ship coming in. They all get the same person
in the same suit with the same armor, and so forth and so on.
CAPT Webster: Yes, I see the conundrum
that we have created, but clearly without enough resources to do everything
perfectly we're going to have to come up with some type of compromise.
And part of the main issue with the projected growth over the next 20 years
of 65 percent new recreational boaters in that same waterway where we want
to bring in the high interest vessel cargos, we have to do business
differently. And I think part of that new business is to recognize
that there are these key events where there's especially high value, not
only to us domestically for energy resources, but also high value for
terrorists in their war on the United States.
Q: The morning of 9/11, what kinds of
things were thrown at you in the operational arena?
CAPT Webster: Well clearly the major
issues that we were addressing were self force protection; implement an
immediate scheme - like we did in every case prior to this - get as many
resources into the affected area as possible, provide an overt visible
presence to reassure the American public that they were safe and to evacuate
Manhattan and to reestablish communications with Activities New York through
Station New York. Those were the top priorities for, I'd say, the
first 12-hours.
Q: So operationally you had lost
communications for all intents and purposes with Activities
New York?
CAPT Webster: Oddly the best
communications we had with Activities New York was through e-mail. It's odd
when we talk about e-mail these days, but the phone communications was
spotty. The cellular was sketchy at best, and for whatever reason
through the routing we could get e-mail through them, and occasionally we'd
get this burst of information that would come and spread like wild fire
through the District and update everyone. The Activities, I think,
reconstituted communications through relay through Station
Q: As a District Officer, when you go
into these staff meetings are you - and as a lifelong career officer - are
you looking for anything particular out of your leadership? Do you
look to them in a crisis to behave in a certain way?
CAPT Webster: I won't ever forget the
. . . this is not necessary a leadership thing, but it was clear to me that
my staff was seriously affected by this event. Even though we were not
at the nexus of the actual attack, you could see the controllers who on a
normal day look out that window and look at
Q: Do you take those, and throughout
your career, have you taken those lessons from senior officers? Where
do you get your own sense of command?
CAPT Webster: Well I've been fortunate
to work with [Rear] Admiral [Richard M.] Larabee [III, USCG], retired, on
two previous occasions for the [John F.] Kennedy [Jr.; Kennedy's private
plane crashed off Nantucket Island on 19 July 1999, killing Kennedy, his
wife and her sister] case and for the EgyptAir 990 [On
October 31, 1999 EgyptAir flight 990, a scheduled international flight from
New York to Cairo, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean about 60 miles south of
Nantucket Island] recovery operation. And I guess he's been my
model -of at least in the last three years - of someone that has faced these
incredible white hot intense events with media and emotion and done an
incredible job of remaining calm, providing a sense of reassurance, and a
sense of emoting to the people around him that he was involved, not only
operationally but also emotionally. And he provided a model, I think,
for reassurance in the face of fire.
Q: Yes. That morning when this
first happened, Captain Yatto, or one of his staff members, was telling me
this morning that when the second plane went in they made the decision to
send whatever they had to
CAPT Webster: Sure.
Q: Was there a similar sense here that
very quickly you needed to get everything on the move toward the city?
CAPT Webster: Yes, one of the first
decisions that was made after the Force Protection Conditions were changed
had to do with mobilizing any unit that was underway with the exception of
the north and south search and rescue cutters, which was something we
protected religiously throughout. All of the Bravo and Charlie cutters
were brought to Alpha unless it didn't make sense, and in most cases the
ships had already taken those initial actions themselves. In many
cases they had already gotten themselves underway without a set of orders
and had proceeded in the general direction of New York/New Jersey.
Q: Did those orders come down from
Operations here in the District?
CAPT Webster: Yes. I have those
and I can provide those to you.
Q: Essentially what is your area of
responsibility is, is to assess the situation and find out what resources
you have and to get them underway and get them on the move. Is that a
fair statement?
CAPT Webster: I'm a resource person.
The District Commander commands the District and, for example, we went to
the Atlantic Area command for Atlantic Area command-controlled resources
like the cutter Spencer [WMEC-905]. We went to them to have the
Spencer chopped to us and directed the Spencer down to
One of the other key early decisions was that
some of the most volatile cargo ships were kept out from port. I think
there was an early active consideration about an LNG [Liquid Natural Gas]
coming into
Q: I just want to show you from the
Abstract of Operations to see if this is what you had a sense of.
These are the boat forces the first four days showing where everything was
on September 10th, and then the surge, not only in hours, but in the change
of mission obviously.
CAPT Webster: And I would suggest that
the changes were even more radical here in the 1st District because . . .
Q: Well that was my first question to
the guy who does these at Headquarters. I said, are these broken down
by Districts, and he said, no, we haven't gotten to that level yet.
CAPT Webster: I have that data here if
that would be of some interest to you. I think you'll find that the
impact was greater in the 1st District and continues to be so.
Q: Is that across platforms, cutters,
boats and aircraft?
CAPT Webster: Oh clearly. And
whatever arrangements were made at the District level for District
controlled resources, the groups were making their own negotiations.
So you had Group Moriches feeding small boat resources to Activities New
York. Group Wood's Hole doing the same thing, and Group Long Island
Sound. You had these multi-layered negotiations going on and we do
have these numbers if they'd be of some interest to you.
Q: I think the comparative . . . I've
got to give this data out to the talk in Hawaii in another month or so, and
that's what I have from over all the Coast Guard. But I think that
similar graph for the 1st District would be very revealing.
CAPT Webster: This kind of summarizes
what I told you where our head was, so to speak, in terms of . . . it's kind
of interesting. I published - just as an aside - maybe a couple of
weeks before 9/11 I published the new Operations Goals and Objectives for
2001 through 2003, most of which became obsolete on September 11th.
Q: It's this kind of thing that I've
been saying for years. They should have a - just like they do at the
Pentagon now - is have a daily Coast Guard press briefing where they show
where all of our resources are and what they're doing so it can provide the
American people a much better picture of where we are and what we're doing.
CAPT Webster: I don't know how deep
you want to get into this Chief but there maybe historical records of the
actual transits of these vessels and their actual activities on the hours
and days afterwards that were recorded in electronic logs. We have a
system in the 1st that's unique called a CDPD. It's a cellular based
system where I can click on a website and go back. I can't remember
how far, but we can go back and see where a cutter has been, how fast they
were going, and if we wanted to we could send them an e-mail by this system.
Q: I think that would be very valuable
because one of the things I would like to do for this study is to show where
our forces were in the 1st District on the 10th and not to show where they
wound up, you know, we're now in Port Security, but to show the tracks that
they all took to get there. To show them converging, and if that data
is at Headquarters, I haven't found it yet. This is about the hours
that were involved. It's about what we have, and some of the smaller
vessels like the Line [WYTL-65611], the Adak [WPB-1333] and
the Wire [WYTL-65612], I have nothing for; some of those vessels that
responded to New York. And I'm going to try to get done interviewing
Captain [Patrick A.] Harris [USCG] and his staff on Thursday. So I'm
going to try to get some of that material then.
CAPT Webster: Sure.
Q: I've got good coverage from the Juniper
[WLB-201], the Katherine Walker [WLM-552], and I've been in touch
with the Bainbridge Island [WPB-1343], but I haven't made contact
with them, and the Grand Isle [WPB-1338], the Monomoy [WPB-1326],
the Ridley [WPB 87328]; those guys got me some good stuff, the rest
of them. I think where the weakness is right now, and Captain Harris
and I've talked about this and we're going to try to rectify it at some
point, is that we have nothing from the boat force, and those guys took such
a whack in this situation. But one of the problems with our SITREPs is
that it will say, well, cutter this, cutter that, cutter "Z" are
here and are going here, plus seven small boats. You don't have their
numbers. You don't have their stations. So you could never track those
people down later.
CAPT Webster: Well those numbers can
probably . . . I mean it's going to require some effort, but can be
reconstructed through the AOPS [Abstract of Operations Data System] data.
I know we had to collect that data along the way to show that we'd consumed
20 years worth of a UTB's [Utility Boat] life in the first month.
Q: How was that determination made up?
I've heard that figure used and how exactly do you make that determination?
CAPT Webster: It was a summary of the
boat hours in Activities New York area for the 30 days after September 11th.
And I have no doubt they have really good boat record hours data, but we
have some fairly insightful, concise summary messages that came out in the
days and weeks afterwards. We were trying to come to grips with the
impact of what was this new burn rate doing to us, and like you've probably
heard the fact, okay, they've changed 85 propellers in the first week after
9/11 because the contractor who goes around New York Harbor recovering drift
wood stopped working after 9/11, and they became very proficient at changing
propellers on 41-foot UTBs. But I know the OPR [Operations Planning
Review] folks here have a lot of data on the small boats. Because
right now we're trying to figure out what new caps to assign the groups in
the stations because some stations have used up 400 or 600 boat hours per
year allowance already in the first six plus months of the fiscal year, or
less than six months, and they technically should only use 200 more hours.
Q: Before they're sitting in the dock
for the rest of the year.
CAPT Webster: Yes, during the busy SAR
season. So that isn't going to happen. So we have a lot of this
stuff. Let me see what I can dredge up for you.
Q: That will be very helpful, Sir.
I appreciate that. Well this has been a real help
CAPT Webster: Okay.
Q: And I think that's the, as I say,
that's the big gap that I have right now.
END OF INTERVIEW
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