7 US sailors found dead
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Kirby: How did a US warship and a cargo ship collide?
Amid questions, here's what we're sure of in the USS Fitzgerald collision
Story highlights
- The USS Fitzgerald collided with a freighter off Japan early Saturday
- Seven US sailors were killed
CNN national security analyst John Kirby is a retired rear admiral in the US Navy who was a spokesman for both the State and Defense Departments in the Obama administration. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.
(CNN)There is -- at this writing -- a lot we do not know about how the destroyer USS Fitzgerald came to collide with a heavily-laden freighter in the waters off Japan in the middle of the night.
We
do not know whether the warship's radars were operating sufficiently.
We do not know what decisions the men and women who were standing watch
aboard the destroyer made -- or failed to make -- that could have
averted the danger. We do not know what actions, if any, were taken by
the crew of the freighter to either cause or avoid this tragedy.
John Kirby
But this much we do know:
First,
we know the crew fought heroically to save their ship and the lives of
their shipmates. We know that from early reports by Navy officials but
also from the images that flashed across our screens, our tablets and
our phones after the incident happened early Saturday.
One
look at the crushed, twisted starboard side, the hoses flaked about,
the water being discharged, the frantic work being done tells you all
you need to know about the stuff you can't see in those same images: a
fiercely brave crew working together to staunch the flooding, to rescue
their shipmates and to save their ship.
You
can be certain they ended up drenched, exhausted, scraped and bruised
-- but not broken. They kept that ship from foundering for 16 brutal
hours. And they brought her back into port.
I don't care who you are, but you have to respect that kind of teamwork.
Any
sailor will tell you how long and how hard they train to get good at
damage control. It's pounded into them from the time they set foot at
boot camp or the Naval Academy or a hundred other schools they must
attend throughout their career.
Fire
and flood are enemies at sea, same as an adversary's fleet. Except that
fire and flood can be the results of accidents, mishaps or even your
own mistakes.
And that's the second
thing we know for certain today: that the Navy is going to find out
exactly what happened. The investigation has already begun. It will be
thorough. It will be clear. It will be definitive.
Investigators
will document minute-by-minute how these two ships came to occupy the
same piece of water -- how they approached one another, at what speeds,
courses and angles. They will interview every possible witness, examine
every relevant piece of equipment, pore over every kilobyte of recorded
data.
With
the help of tug boats, the USS Fitzgerald, with its damaged starboard
side, makes its way toward the US Navel base, Yokosuka on June 17.
In
the end, they will be able to reconstruct the entire event in time and
space and determine precisely what lapses in judgment, seamanship and
leadership occurred.
And then they
will make that investigation public. They will lay it out there for all
to see and for all to learn from. Reporters won't have to submit Freedom
of Information Act requests or rely on leakers to find out what
investigators discover. The Navy will tell them. They'll probably even
hold a news conference.
After that,
Navy leaders will incorporate the lessons they learn from this tragedy
into those navigation, damage control and leadership courses, in the
hopes that something like this doesn't happen again.
The Navy will not be afraid to hold itself to account for this.
That
leads us to the third thing we can safely know: accountability. It
won't be just the Navy that gets the lash here. Careers will be dashed.
People will be punished. Short of battle at sea, Navy warships are not
supposed to hit anything -- not the ground, not each other, and
certainly not container ships in the middle of the night.
The commanding officer, Cmdr. Bryce Benson, will almost certainly be the first to go.
The
damage to Philippine-registered container ship ACX Crystal is seen in
the waters off Izu Peninsula, southwest of Tokyo on June 17.
"Anyone who has ever commanded a ship knows that you are inescapably responsible for everything that happens on your watch," wrote my friend and colleague, Bryan McGrath, himself a former destroyer captain. "There is no such thing as 'I was asleep' or 'I was ashore.'"
The
Navy won't need to complete its findings to hold Cmdr. Benson
responsible. He will surely lose his command forthwith. But there will
no doubt be others whose performance during the incident will be found
wanting, maybe even negligent. They will also be held to account. There
may even be courts-martial that result.
That's
the way it's always been. It's the way it has to be. Because the
American people must have trust and confidence in the men and women who
command their sons and daughters, who lead them into harm's way. If they
don't -- or they can't -- have that trust and confidence, well, we
can't man the ships we put to sea. And the Navy can't defend the nation.
In
the same blog post, Bryan cited an editorial from The Wall Street
Journal that was written after a 1952 collision between two US Navy
warships, which resulted in the loss of 176 lives.
It sums this whole ugly business up beautifully and mercilessly:
An injured USS Fitzgerald personnel is carried by US military solider on June 17.
"On
the sea there is a tradition older even than the traditions of the
country itself and wiser in its age than this new custom. It is the
tradition that with responsibility goes authority and with them both
goes accountability."
It continues:
"It is cruel, this accountability of good and well-intentioned men. But
the choice is that or an end of responsibility and finally as the cruel
scene has taught, an end to the confidence and trust in the men who
lead, for men will not long trust leaders who feel themselves beyond
accountability for what they do.
"And
when men lose confidence and trust in those who lead, order
disintegrates into chaos and purposeful ships into uncontrollable
derelicts."
I never commanded a
ship, never fired a shot in anger or had one fired at me. I remain in
awe of those who willingly assume the burden of command, the crushing
weight of that responsibility. I am not their equal.
Therefore,
I am unqualified to hazard a guess at the personal distress Cmdr.
Benson and the rest of his crew feel right now. Nor can I imagine the
grief of the families now mourning the loss of the seven sailors.
All
I can do is offer my prayers and take some comfort in knowing that
whatever more we learn about this tragedy, whatever wounds must yet
heal, the Navy will not let this "cruel scene" diminish from our eyes
without first holding itself and its people to account -- that it will
not permit disintegration into chaos and that it will not shirk from its
duty to preserve the trust and confidence placed in it by our elected
leaders and the American people.
Navy
leaders sometimes fail. The Navy as an institution sometimes suffers as
a result. But neither those leaders nor that institution will prove
afraid and unwilling to answer for that.
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