Sounds like just the last straw. I am surpised it took that long. Normally if you hit anything your out of there, let alone do damage.

Wasn't the skipper of the carrier JFK also relieved a while back? What the hell is causing these guys to get their commands & then not being able to perform? Are the promotion boards getting fooled that badly?

All the criticisms come from the Vice Admiral and some commander. Also, those sailors were arrested in JAPAN, a country we know damn well that would like to do anything to get us out of there. I need not remind anyone about all the "incidents" on Okinawa that went on, despite the fact the pedophilic rape is a major problem and secret past time of Japanese business men. I put money down that the people caught were African-Americans as well. The Japanese are extremely racist against blacks more so than whites.

If this guy led the Aghan battle, I find it hard to believe that a crew that has been gone for much of the past year wouldn't be prone to "screw up" from time to time.

Point is, I'd like to hear from the crew before I start believing Navy brass. Remember that they blamed and court martialed the commander of the USS Indianapolis for getting sunk, right?

themao [chainsawkill]
__________________________

Got ice picks?

The other thing to remember that a commander of a ship is personally responsible for the acts of the men under his command. Imagine being responsible for the actions of 5000+ men? I can barely handle myself!

If any of the reported incidents are true, then just the fallout from the number of complaints would be sufficient for someone to take action, and the easiest is to blame the CO for all problems, whether under his control or not! (See 1st line). Not saying that its right, its just the way it is in the military.

He who gets attention drawn to themself is the one who gets hung!

Didn't the Navy in all of it's brilliance also accuse deceased sailor Clayton Hartwig of being a depressed homosexual and purposefully causing a blast that destroyed the Number 2 gun turret on the USS Iowa?

Just athought but look whats going on and coming out of our schools. I predict this is not the end of such incidents and results.
BP

Absolutely true. And what is also true is that the CO, Gunnery Officer and a few others were relieved of command/duty as the accident occured under their command or on their watch.

There was also a case that I remember in 1979/1980 where the JFK was getting ready to deploy to the Med. for a 6 month tour, relieving the carrier that had been onstation for 9 months. The day they were supposed to depart (Norfolk, I believe) someone sabotaged the ship by throwing a very large wrench into the gearbox of the propeller shafts, destroying them. The CO was relieved of duty all because some 18yo E-3 didn't want to leave his girlfriend. (It took 6 months to repair).

Not fair, not right? Perhaps not, but that's the way it is, not only in the Navy, but in the military in general.

It's bad enough having to be responsible for 5000+ 17-25 year olds who have been at sea for 6 months, then let loose in some foreign port without adult supervision! But unless things have changed, the CO is also financially responsible for damages to his ship. Just like a pilot can be held financially responsible for his plane while in flight, and the crew chief is responsible for the plane on the ground. Granted, it hasn't happened much that I'm aware of, but can you imagine being responsible because one of the crew broke your ship?

The saying is "Shit rolls down hill", but that isn't strictly true in the military. It also defies gravity and rolls up hill!

Yep.

This Captain would have been headed toward Admiral's stars else he wouldn't have gotten within sniffing distance of this command.

Got to be issues within the crew - something else we don't see.

Scratching the boat with a buoy would have technically been enough but he would have been relieved immediately if that incident was driving.

It wasn't just an accusation.  There was some hard forensic evidence that Hartwig did cause the explosion.  There was NOT enough proof to make such an accusation stick and when certain people in the Navy made the public accusation and couldn't back it up and Hartwig's sister lawyered up, she had the Navy cold.  She got the media on her side and was able to make her case in the press, which the Navy could NOT do for privacy act reasons.  A later technical study by Sandia Labs in New Mexico, on the powder lot for the 16" guns that was aboard Iowa at the time of the explosion, indicated that the powder bags [b]might[/b] have exploded [b]IF[/b] the rammer was overramed into the open breech during the loading process.  I do not believe that case, like the Hartwig asscusation was ever proven.  That is, I'm not sure that the over-ramming scenario was proven.  I was even told that it is impossible to over-ram that gun...but that was some years ago.  This possible scenario was investigated by the Naval Investigative Service but it too did not result in any concrete conclusions.
Further damning testimony involved a certain master chief petty officer gunner's mate and his "illegal" operations involving the powder charges.  I am not aware if anything came of that either, but I know it gave great weight to the argument of Hartwig's sister that the Navy had completely bungled the investigation.

Critical evidence was found in Hartwig's locker that indicated that he was "possibly" involved in the manufacture of a small explosive device that could be easily and surreptitiously attached to a powder bag during the loading process of the main gun, then the pressure of the bags being rammed would set it off.  The paperwork indicated that Hartwig at least had the knowlege of such a device.  Why he did remains open to speculation.

Hartwig was a loader in the gun crew.  His GQ station was in the gun room, working the breech assy. of the gun.  He was the guy who pulled/rolled the 16" bags of powder into the loading tray prior to ramming them into the breech for firing.

Evidence was uncovered and testimony given that Hartwig was having an affair with at least one other sailor in the crew.

Hartwig did leave his entire SGLI insurance annuity to another sailor.  This is one reason his sister began her fight with the Navy in the first place.

I believe that the NIS completely blew this case.  They further never should have gone public with their story until they had a lock on it.  I would have called in outside help, including technical labs, the FBI, and individual forensic scientists to eliminate all dead ends.  Then, what you have left, like it or not...illogical or not, is the truth.  They didn't do this, and Hartwig's sister and her lawyer made the Navy look stupid.  Careers were ended because of that too.

The prime reason Naval officers in command are relieved for cause is because their superiors lose confidence in the captain's ability to safely and correctly run his ship and lead their crew.

In the case of the Kitty Hawk the crew has been in a lot of trouble overseas lately along with the rest of the 7th Fleet.  I am not sure why but the amount of crimes and drug usage has gone way up.  The commander of the 7th Fleet has just cracked down on the entire force for their bad behavior.  He has imposed liberty restrictions on the crews not seen in WESTPAC for nearly thirty years, including Cinderella liberty for all of the young sailors, meaning they have to be back aboard before midnight.  He has also put the COs on notice to get their crews to begin behaving themselves or else.  Seems that may have had an effect here.

Reliefs for cause are rare but they do happen.  Usually its over something like a grounding or collision at sea but sometimes its just a pile of crap that builds up and finally gets to be too much.  In 1982, I was serving in a destroyer in which the commodore fired out CO, and personally took command of the ship until another CO could be located, a period of about six weeks.  Lucky for me, I had just reported aboard for duty.  I found out later that this relief was because of a series of screw-ups that had been going on for some time.  The crew morale sucked.  Drug usage among the crew was soaring.  One sailor committed suicide by hanging himself topside.  The ship was filthy, the crew likewise.  Many didn't have a full seabag.  Most of the equipment and ship's systems, including the main propulsion, sonar and nuclear weapons fire control and storage system (magazine) were either inop or marginally operational.  The straw that broke the camel's back was the week in which we miserably failed two major inspections, causing the ship to be figuratively chained to the pier until we were fixed and declared fit and safe to steam.  Three other officers were immediately fired or transferred soon after.  As I was new, I was fortunate to dodge the wrath of the commodore.  I was given the job of cleaning up the nuclear weapons mess, and fixing the sonar division, which I and the chief proceeded to do.  We soon got our new CO and began turning the ship around.  Six months later, she was among the best in the Fleet and fully ready to deploy.  We were even up for the Fleet award that goes to the ship that improves most in one year.  Unfortunately, the Navy decided right then to decommission us in three months!  Go figure.

  I also believe it is a more complicated issue than what appears to be on the surface. There have been other incidents in Japan that involved U.S. military personnel commiting crimes and adding to the already strained relations.

   We should really stick to cut and wet (dried) incidents such as cutting off cable car lines with our topgun fighter jocks or ramming Japanese fishing vessels with our nuclear "Attack" submarines.

Accused of crimes.  I don't believe a thing the Japs say for a fucking instant.

   

Actually, that was a bomber (I believe it was something like an A6, but I can't remember for sure), not a fighter in Italy.  

Funny how that Jap fishing ship was in [i]American[/i] territorial waters, ain't it?  

LWilde, nevermind the fact that the gun boss chief in charge of the turret was "playing" with his own version of powder loads (I wonder if he used a reloading manual for that) or that they had mixed in silk bags of powder with rayon bags of powder.

Any GM/TM/AO worth a shit would know how to build a bomb.

It sounds like the ship you describe was a byproduct of a DummycRAT President.


From the Navy Times:

Skipper relieved of command of the carrier Kitty Hawk

By William H. McMichael
Times staff writer

The skipper of the Japan-based aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk has been fired for failing to ensure the 41-year-old ship was in good enough shape to “carry out essential missions and taskings,” the Navy announced Tuesday.
The firing of Capt. Thomas Hejl, who assumed command of the Navy’s oldest active ship in August 2001, marks the second time in less than a year that the Navy has relieved the commanding officer of a conventionally powered aircraft carrier. Hejl was relieved on Tuesday morning, Japan time, during a meeting with Vice Adm. Robert F. Willard, commander of 7th Fleet.

Kitty Hawk's new commanding officer is Capt. Robert Donel (Don) Barbaree, Jr. the former executive officer of the aircraft carrier Nimitz and commanding officer of the fast replenishment ship Seattle. Barbaree had been serving as the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations, Plans and Engagement at 7th Fleet.

Cmdr. Matt Brown, a 7th Fleet spokesman, told Stars and Stripes newspaper the action “is a result of the continued degradation of the ship’s material condition and personnel readiness. It was not a result of any single issue or event; it was a whole series of things.”

Brown gave two examples of those failures. According to the news report, the Kitty Hawk struck a buoy while entering port in Singapore earlier this year while the captain was on the bridge directing the ship. That collision, not previously reported, caused damage to the main shaft and propeller, newspaper said.

Brown also said the ship last week failed a “light off” assessment — an inspection of the ship’s main propulsion plant that must be passed before the ship is allowed to leave port.

“There was also a lot of evidence that shows the watchstanders were not following standard operating procedures, which directly led to some of the equipment casualties the ship experienced,” the paper quoted Brown as saying.

In December, the commanding officer of the Mayport, Fla.-based carrier John F. Kennedy, Capt. Maurice Joyce, was fired after the ship failed a major materiel inspection shortly before it was to deploy overseas. The official reason given for the firing of Joyce was “a loss of confidence” in his ability to command, although then-Rear Adm. Michael D. Malone, the former commander of the Atlantic Fleet Naval Air Force, subsequently acknowledged in an interview with Navy Times that the 34-year-old carrier had been “systematically underfunded” for years.

Despite its age, the Kitty Hawk was thought to be less vulnerable to the widespread maintenance funding shortfalls that became evident in much of the U.S. military in the late 1990s because many of the in-port labor costs associated with its maintenance are paid for by the government of Japan.

The Navy has 12 active aircraft carriers, nine of which are nuclear-powered. The remaining conventionally powered carrier is the San Diego-based Constellation, which turns 41 in October.

This is a damn shame.  CAPT Hejl is as good a guy as you would ever want to meet - especially at his paygrade.  Don't buy into the "troubled sailors" as the reason.  He is being canned because of deteriorating material condition of the Kitty Hawk - same reason as the CO of the JFK.  Maintaining such an old boat is pretty much impossible, especially with the way maintenance accounts are WAY underfunded.  We specialize in band-aid fixes for years and it's like musical chairs waiting for the S to HTF.  K. Hawk has been rode hard and put away wet.  I've been on 5 ships and the newest was commisioned in 1969 and I fly helos that are 35-40 years old.  As CO you have 2 choices - work your folks 12-18 hours a day 6 or 7 days a week or fix what's "brokest" and keep the days to 10 hours 5 days a week.  Choose 1 and your gear may work if you can afford replacement parts, but you will pay the price in retention and the word will get out and good folks won't want to go there.  Choose 2 and try to do right by your troops and you are rolling the dice on your career.