Navy May Open More Ships to Women : Defense: The controversial proposal, aimed at keeping female sailors in the service, would place them on some vessels that sail into battle.

WASHINGTON — In a potentially controversial bid to keep female sailors in the Navy, the service has proposed putting women aboard some of its men-only warships--a move that could put more women in harm’s way and spark a wider review of their role in the service, according to Pentagon officials.

Fearing that plans to decommission several support ships will reduce job opportunities for female sailors and drive them out of the service, the Navy has asked Defense Secretary Les Aspin for clearance to allow women on two classes of fleet-replenishment ships and a key class of amphibious vessels.

Pentagon sources said the initiative, if approved by Aspin, would put women aboard vessels that steam into battle alongside U.S. aircraft carriers, further blurring the distinction between noncombatant ships, on which women are now permitted to serve, and combatant ships, from which they are still barred.

The proposal has been forwarded to Aspin, who is now considering it as part of a package of possible initiatives designed to expand assignments for women in the military.

Pentagon spokesman Vernon Guidry on Thursday said Aspin has been “signaling his thinking” that he favors the change and that he also wants to readdress the issue of assigning women to the crews of combat aircraft.

“He’s going to take a hard look at it,” but there is no timetable for such decisions, Guidry said.

The Navy’s proposal also would allow female sailors, for the first time, to serve on the prestigious staffs of the Navy’s Middle East fleet as well as its 2nd, 3rd and 7th Fleets, which oversee the movements of Navy vessels in the Atlantic, eastern Pacific, and the western Pacific, respectively.

That would mark a small but highly symbolic advance for Navy women, who frequently have expressed the belief that their careers are being stunted by their lack of experience on key fleet planning staffs.

Chief of Naval Operations Frank B. Kelso II, told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday that as the Navy retires many support ships on which women have been permitted to serve, “we’re trying very hard to open up additional opportunities.”

Currently, women are permitted to serve on 64 of the Navy’s 456 vessels, and 8,900 of the Navy’s roughly 220,000 women serve on ships.

The new proposal would open approximately 15 more ships to women, with a potential of as many as 2,000 new female positions.

The Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces recently recommended that all of the Navy’s surface ships, except amphibious vessels, be opened to women.

However, neither the George Bush Administration nor the Clinton Administration have responded to that proposal. The Navy’s proposal falls far short of the commission’s more sweeping recommendation, and several Pentagon officials portrayed it as an interim step.

Kelso’s statement during the House panel’s budget hearings Wednesday was in response to concerns raised by Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.). “Downsizing is crowding women out in a lot of directions,” Schroeder said.

Aspin’s proposed budget blueprint calls for the retirement of 14 ships on which 1,700 women now serve. Among them is the aircraft carrier Forrestal, a training vessel with a complement of some 600 women.

The Navy has been eager to win Aspin’s approval for its proposal so that it can take the formal step of opening the ships to women before the public release of a damaging report on the 1991 Tailhook Convention.

That report is expected to detail incidents of alleged sexual assault by Navy and Marine Corps aviators at the meeting of the naval boosters group--an event that has prompted the Navy to undertake a sweeping reassessment of its policies toward women.

“The Navy desperately needs to do something positive for women. The news for women in the past two years has been so bad,” said Carolyn Becraft, an expert on women’s roles in the military for the Women’s Research and Education Institute. “This is something that they could have done long ago, but they should be given credit for having taken at least an interim step here. But it should be seen as an interim step to opening more opportunities.”

However, Pentagon officials close to Aspin have warned that it may be some time before the issue of expanding assignments for women in the military is acted upon by the defense secretary, who has been preoccupied with complex budget matters and a wide-ranging review of the nation’s long-term defense needs.