Hot racking takes on a new meaning aboard USS Connecticut

For the last year it seems the nuclear fast attack submarine USS Connecticut has been ridden with bed bugs. After dealing with it for months, the sailors of the Silent Service are silent no more.

Jeff LPH 3 sends this Navy Times report;

The crew of the fast-attack submarine Connecticut has been subjected to a bed bug infestation in their racks, and sailors assigned to the sub allege that the boat’s command has been slow to fix the problem.

The infestation issue began while the sub was taking part in ICEX 2020 in the Arctic Ocean in March 2020 and continued during a deployment last year, according to a Connecticut petty officer who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution.

“We’ve had bed bugs for a year now,” the petty officer said. “Sailors complained about getting bitten in the racks.”

“People are terrified of getting bit,” he added.

While sailors allege they battled bed bugs for most of 2020, Cmdr. Cynthia Fields, a Naval Surface Forces Pacific spokeswoman, said the boat’s command first reported the issue in December, and that the “physical presence” of bed bugs wasn’t found onboard until Feb. 19.

“Navy criteria for treating submarines or ships requires physical presence of bed bugs to establish existence,” she said.

The petty officer said the command initially didn’t believe sailor bed bug claims because “we didn’t have proof.”

Daily inspections have commenced, all berthing spaces have been searched and mattresses have been inspected, Fields said.

Linens and privacy curtains have been laundered or replaced, and Navy entomologists have come onboard to monitor efforts that include “deadly countermeasures,” she said.

“The Navy takes the safety and health of its sailors very seriously,” Fields said.

But according to two petty officers assigned to Connecticut, the boat has been dealing with bed bugs since at least the time of the ICEX event in March 2020.

It got so bad that some crew members took to sleeping in chairs or on the floor of the crew’s mess to escape the elusive bloodsuckers during their deployment, said one petty officer.

“People were getting eaten alive in their racks,” said the petty officer, who alleges that the infestation spread to several enlisted berthing spaces and at least one officer state room.

“The best way to put it would probably be ‘employee abuse,’ but that’s not really a thing in the Navy, I guess,” another petty officer who also requested anonymity for fear of retribution said of leadership’s response to the problem.

One petty officer said he has contacted the Naval Inspector General and reached out to Navy Times because leadership hasn’t adequately addressed the issue, and sub life is stressful enough without bed bugs and the loss of sleep the insects brought to the crew.

Sailors already share racks in the sub’s close quarters, and fatigue takes on added consequence when underway in a metal tube far below the surface, he noted.

“If someone’s sleep deprived because they’re in the rack getting eaten alive by bed bugs, he could fall asleep at (the controls) and run us into an underwater mountain,” the petty officer said.

The petty officer said he also worries that fellow crew members will take bed bugs home to their spouses and kids.

“I don’t’ want them to take bed bugs home,” he said. “They have to pay for fumigators and their families will suffer.”

Much more at the source. If the sailors wanted a quicker resolution, they should have released some of the captured bugs into the officer’s ward room or the captain’s berth.

This isn’t the first time that Connecticut has come under attack. In 2003 she surfaced through the Arctic ice where her rudder was gnawed on by a curious polar bear for a while.

030427-O-0000B-001
Near the North Pole (Apr. 27, 2003) — During Exercise ICEX 2003, the Seawolf-class attack submarine USS Connecticut (SSN 22) surfaced and broke through the ice. This polar bear, attracted by the hole which can be used to find food, was seen through the sub’s periscope and these photos were captured as the image was projected on a flat-panel display. After investigating the Connecticut for approximately 40 minutes, the bear left the area, with no damage to the sub or to the bear. U.S. Navy photo by Mark Barnoff. (RELEASED)

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