ON THE ROCKS: More Than Just a Fire: The Implications of the Bonhomme Richard Catastrophe.
In the U.S. Navy, “shock trials” involve taking a warship to sea and conducting drills to see how well she might absorb the stress of combat. The Navy has lately experienced institutional shock trials: bribery scandals, collisions and sundry other public-relations nightmares. This week in San Diego the USS Bonhomme Richard, a $750 million amphibious assault ship, caught fire and burned for days. Earlier this year, Capt. Brett Crozier was relieved of command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt after writing a letter saying he needed to move his sailors off the aircraft carrier to arrest an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
High-profile mishaps and unwanted publicity point to an overarching problem: For several years the Navy has been forced to do too much with too little, a debate that deserves wider attention. The Navy also seems to be suffering from a cultural dysfunction in the chain of command. To repair it, the Navy will need to reinvent its process for refining leaders and perhaps even the service’s broader mission. What’s at stake is the quality of American military talent that fights the next war—an eventuality that seems less far-fetched amid the tense mood of a global pandemic.
The 2017 crashes in the Western Pacific involving the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald still loom large in the Navy. An investigation revealed that Pacific fleet ships were going to sea with too little training and that crews weren’t skilled in the basics of sea navigation. Also implicated was the Navy’s “can do” culture—the propensity of naval officers to try to get the job done no matter the cost.
“Interviews revealed that, particularly among ships based in Japan, crews perceived their Commanding Officer was unable to say ‘no’ regardless of unit-level consequence,” according to a 177-page “comprehensive review” of the 2017 incidents. Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, who commanded the Seventh Fleet during the collisions, wrote in a naval publication that he’d “made clear” to his superiors “the impact of increased operational demand on training and maintenance well prior” to the accidents. Despite “explicitly stated concerns,” he wrote, “the direction we received was to execute the mission.” He was fired shortly after the accidents.
In 2015, a submarine ran aground in Florida, resulting in $1 million in damage. The Navy fired Capt. David Adams, the officer in command when the accident occurred. Journalist Hope Hodge Seck of Military.com made a public-records request for the 475-page investigation, the details of which she published in March. Capt. Adams had warned his superiors that his crew was too inexperienced to handle a precarious predawn return to port. He was nevertheless told to execute the mission.
The Navy’s tradition of firing commanding officers who fail is a venerable one, and the Navy has tried to absorb the lessons of these incidents. But as Ms. Seck notes, the sub mishap “came against the backdrop of a Navy grappling with a culture in which overworked and unready crews were regularly put underway in service of operational needs.” The careers of commanders like Capt. Adams can look like the casualties.
The Roosevelt is a confounding example. The Navy’s investigation makes a strong case for removing Capt. Crozier. He failed to rein in the ship’s senior medical officer, who, according to the Navy’s investigation, was predicting up to 50 virus deaths on the ship and threatening to take the medical department’s grim case to the press. (One sailor assigned to the Roosevelt died from complications of Covid-19.)
Yet the Navy’s report also details how the Roosevelt’s leadership became frustrated with its superiors at Seventh Fleet headquarters over the chaotic process of moving sailors off the ship.
On the upside, everyone’s diversity and trans-awareness training is up to date.