Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: BlueJ1 on October 30, 2007, 08:35:43 PM
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Drink up, blow up, cover up
Booze and a fire, a report says, make a wild night aboard the Halsey. The aftermath includes $8.5M damage, and a skipper’s lost career
By Andrew Scutro - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Oct 30, 2007 16:46:06 EDT
It all happened in the span of a few hours. On the night of Nov. 2, 2006, while the destroyer Halsey was tied to the pier in Kagoshima, Japan, several members of the crew got drunk on board the ship following an official reception for Japanese visitors.
Then a fire broke out in the main engine room. But some of the sailors were too drunk to even don their firefighting gear. During and after the fire, the captain remained in his stateroom — despite pleas from his officers to take charge of the situation.
On top of all that, one of the ship’s sailors had to go to the hospital after being bitten by a shipmate.
Details of the incidents, released recently by Naval Surface Forces in a redacted preliminary inquiry report, paint the picture of a commanding officer who pressured his on-duty crew members to keep the party going after their Japanese visitors left. And when the fire broke out, some were too drunk to respond. The next day, Halsey skipper Cmdr. John Pinckney Jr. ordered his crew to conceal the extent of the damage, the report said.
On top of all that, one of the ship’s sailors had to go to the hospital after being bitten by a shipmate.
Doh!
Orignal Sotry (http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/10/navy_halsey_071022w/)
Skipper's Rebutle (http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/10/navy_halsey_071029w/)
Quote from 2nd story:
“What we lived through on the 2006 deployment was as close to a ‘Caine Mutiny’ style experience as you can get.”
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Wow! Now for those who survive the fallout this'll make a great sea story.
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Originally posted by Arlo
Wow! Now for those who survive the fallout this'll make a great sea story.
Theres 2 or 3 more stories involving skippers being canned in the past year. One the CO of the U.S.S. constitution for striking a enlisted sailor and a CO of a Sub for falsifying paperwork on chemical tests done.
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I was in Navy Rotc in college and got invited to a ship commisioning of a destroyer in Corpus Christi, Tx once. I remember all the fanfare and the captain taking command. Later while in a Navy class about a month later, they explained that that Captain had been relieved of duty because the ship had runaground. Here today gone tommorrow. They explained how if you so much as breathed wrong on a Navy ship and something happened, kiss it goodbye baby lol. Made me glad i wanted to be a Flight officer. As i think the Navy understood the danger and dynamics of that work and realized how tight it was. I've seen some folks make some bad passes on ships and heard that they got reviewed but did not lose their jobs.
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Navy is doing some good sizing. You fart in the wrong direction and your gone.