The Fourth Arm · Episode 10 of 11 · 18 min
Out of Retirement: The Gulf War Sealift Crisis
In 1990 the United States reached for its mothball fleet to move an army to the Gulf and nearly could not sail it. The episode tells the story of the rocky Ready Reserve Force activation and the hardest problem of all: finding engineers who still knew how to run the old steam-turbine plants.
Who's who
- Samuel K. SkinnerSecretary of Transportation who warned the mariner supply was nearly exhausted
Where it happens
- Persian Gulf+3 more episodesTheater that Desert Shield sealift had to supply
Timeline
- 1976Ready Reserve Force established as a MARAD program
- August 1990Iraq invades Kuwait; Desert Shield begins and 44 reserve ships are activated
- Fall 1990Skinner warns that sending out less than half the fleet nearly exhausted the supply of mariners
- January-February 1991Desert Storm campaign continues to draw on sealift
- 1995Proceedings study quantifies the manpower problem in crewing a full reserve force
Still debated
The popular image of veterans in their sixties and seventies coming out of retirement is widely retold but not pinned to a primary document. How much activation delay came from crewing versus the condition of long-idle ships also lacks a firm source.