By Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class David R. Finley Jr., USS Harry S. Truman Public Affairs
ATLANTIC OCEAN (NNS) -- USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) completed a three week underway period with an ammunition offload, Feb. 17.
Sailors from Truman's Weapons department, moved more than 1,500 tons of ammunition to USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77) and USNS Sacagawea (T-AKE 2) during four days of connected (CONREP) and vertical replenishments (VERTREP).
"Overall the ammo offload was very successful," said Capt. James Daniels, USS Harry S. Truman weapons officer. "We have worked hard the last six days and I am proud of the job my Sailors did out there."
After conducting more than two years of high-tempo carrier operations, Truman is scheduled to enter an extended maintenance period next month.
"Our goal was to get all of the ammunition out of our magazines and onto the Bush and the Sacagawea," said Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class (AW) Daniel Trombley. "We cannot pull into the yards to work on the ship with explosives on board."
Through long and careful planning, Truman's weapons department ensured the offload was a successful evolution.
"About halfway through the deployment, we started getting everything ready by preparing tags and bar codes for all the ordnance," said Trombley. "All the ordnance is sentenced according to the condition code to ensure it's ready for the next squadron that is going to use it."
The department began moving the ordnance from storage magazines to the hangar bay earlier this week in order to organize and separate it.
"It took many long hours of collaboration between the divisions and various teams to get it out of the magazines," said Lt. Chris Dillard. "But it was all necessary to ensure it was moved safely and to the right place. The entire team showed a lot of pride and professionalism in getting the job done."
Even though Weapons department played a major role in the ammunition offload, it took an all-hands effort to make it a successful evolution.
"It wasn't just weapons department out there," said Daniels. "It was a big team effort from every major department on board that made this a successful ammunition offload. We had fire teams manning hoses, security patrolmen on station, air department manning the con-flag stations and deck department doing the connected replenishment."
