By Robert Faturechi, Megan Rose and T. Christian Miller
hen Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin was elevated to lead the
vaunted 7th Fleet in 2015, he expected it to be the pinnacle of his
nearly four-decade Navy career. The fleet was the largest and most
powerful in the world, and its role as one of America’s great protectors
had new urgency. China was expanding into disputed waters. And Kim
Jong-un was testing ballistic missiles in North Korea.
Aucoin was bred on such challenges. As a Navy
aviator, he’d led the “Black Aces,” a squadron of F-14 Tomcats that in
the late 1990s bombed targets in Kosovo.
But what he found with the 7th Fleet alarmed and angered him.
The fleet was short of sailors, and those it had were
often poorly trained and worked to exhaustion. Its warships were falling
apart, and a bruising, ceaseless pace of operations meant there was
little chance to get necessary repairs done. The very top of the Navy
was consumed with buying new, more sophisticated ships, even as its
sailors struggled to master and hold together those they had. The
Pentagon, half a world away, was signing off on requests for ships to
carry out more and more missions.
The risks were obvious, and Aucoin repeatedly warned
his superiors about them. During video conferences, he detailed his
fleet’s pressing needs and the hazards of not addressing them. He
compiled data showing that the unrelenting demands on his ships and
sailors were unsustainable. He pleaded with his bosses to acknowledge
the vulnerability of the 7th Fleet.
Aucoin recalled the response: “Crickets.” If he wasn’t ignored, he was put off — told to calm down and get the job done.
On June 17, 2017, shortly after 1:30 a.m., the USS Fitzgerald, a $1.8 billion destroyer belonging to the 7th Fleet, collided with a giant cargo ship off the coast of Japan. Seven sailors drowned in their sleeping quarters. It was the deadliest naval disaster in four decades.
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Source: ProPublica
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