Faced with constantly improving shipbuilding designs and materials and ever-changing weapons technology, Sailors serving in the Damage Controlman (DC) rating must continually scale a learning curve in order to make the most of the newest equipment and safety features developed by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). Fittingly, many of the newest practices and technologies were formulated and test aboard a vessel that would not even be afloat were it not for the damage-control efforts of her World War II crew.
The USS
Shadwell was a dock-landing ship en route from New Guinea to Leyte in the Philippines when it was struck by a torpedo from a Japanese plane on January 24, 1945. Though the torpedo’s detonation blew a 60-foot hole in the bottom of the ships, the heroic repair and damage-control work performed by the crew not only saved the ship from sinking, but also enabled it to complete its mission by sailing on to Leyte. Although the
Shadwell remained in active service until 1970, she did not see combat again during that time.
In 1988, a dozen years after she was struck from the Naval Vessel Register, the
Shadwell was purchased by the Naval Research Laboratory and moved to Little Sands Island, home of the Navy’s Fire Research Detachment at Mobile Bay, Alabama. There, it became a Full-Scale Damage Control Research Development Test and Evaluation Facility—a fancy way of saying it would be purposefully set ablaze over and over and over again in order to determine the validity of new damage-control theories and the practicality of their applications.
One of the most exciting tools tested on the
Shadwell (officially called the ex-USS
Shadwell) that could be made available to Damage Controlmen in the near future is the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR), a “humanoid” robot that can work its way through narrow passages, climb up and down ladders, and climb through hatches in order to deploy firefighting equipment in environments that would prove lethal to human Sailors. The SAFFiR was tested aboard the
Shadwell in 2014 and made its public “debut” at the Naval Future Force Science & Technology in 2015. Although the robotic firefighter is currently able to perform autonomously, the Navy says that for now the SAFFiR will be controlled by a human—most likely a Damage Controlman who understands the principles of shipboard firefighting.
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