Mixed-Manning “Feasible”

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30803, 15 July 1965, Page 11

Mixed-Manning “Feasible”

(N Z. Press Association—Copyright)

NORFOLK (Virginia), July 13. The captain of the United States destroyer Claude V. Ricketts believes he has shown the world a ship can be run smoothly and efficiently with a crew of mixed nationalities.

“I thought before we sailed in February that mixedmanning was militarily feasible,” said Commander Thomas Fortson, “and I am even more convinced today.” He spoke as the Ricketts, with her crew of 300 recruited from six nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, returned to Norfolk after a fivemonth tour of duty in the Mediterranean.

The captain went into no immediate details. But the obvious high spirits of his crew—American, West

German, British, Dutch, Greek and Italian—indicated the absence of any problems of morale.

The Ricketts originally was envisaged as the forerunner of a multilateral N.A.T.O. force—an idea of the late President Kennedy through which other N.A.T.O. nations could share control of nuclear weapons. As proposed by President Kennedy the force would have consisted of 25 ships each armed with eight Polaris missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads. This idea has been shelved, for the time being, at least.