Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter Cremer
My brother was a 3rd class radarman on the Kenneth D. Bailey DDR 713 in the late 1950's and this 'accident' is like what happened to his ship. His ship was practicing some kind of maneuvers and had stay in formation and this meant (apparently) playing 'chicken' with the civilian freighters. He and the other radar operators started sending messages to the bridge, long before the collision, telling them that the ship was on a collision course with another ship and they could tell that all their warnings were being ignored. They continued to notify the bridge until they were ordered to 'shutup'. Shortly after that, the ship was rammed and one sailor was killed. The sailor's time was up and he was just riding the ship back to the States as a civilian. He said that at the inquiry, NOT EVEN ONE RADARMAN was called to testify. It was a complete 'white wash' for the captain.
I just thought I would throw this in to show that this stuff has happened before and more than likely it will happen again. The way things are now, just because you are a Captain of a U.S. Navy warship doesn't mean other ships are going make an effort to get out of your way.
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We had a guy die from slipping on ice and hitting his head. Medical gave him some aspirin, and sent him to bed. No one notice him missing for a few days, and by then he was in a coma. He later died. Nobody received any grief over it at all. Admiral said these things happen, oh well.
The bad thing about the Fitz is still the closing the hatch on that one hero. I'd rather have taken chances with sinking. You know the USN isn't going to want a broken toy. They'll fix it, but they'll probably quietly retire the Fitz as soon as they can to get a shiny new toy.
You'd also think that people might start realizing that it's unlucky to put "Fitzgerald" anywhere within a ship's name.