( BTW why the hell wasnt he fishing in Japan instead of U.S. waters)
She wasn't! She had just sailed from Honolulu Harbour after refueling and was heading out into INTERNATIONAL waters. (WHAT!!??!! The USA don't own all the oceans!!??!! Shock, horror!).
After leaving Honolulu she set course for her training ground, well out into international waters, and maintained this steady course and speed until the collision. Meanwhile USS Grenville was at sea conducting a public affairs “distinguished visitor” embark for 16 civilian guests. She set sail with several of her sonar team left ashore (including the Leading Chief Petty Officer for the Sonar Division) and her sonar repeater display in the control room was not working. An unqualified crew member was on watch in the sonar room in a position that was required to be manned only by (or directly supervised by) a qualified crew member - he was neither. The fishing vessel was held on sonar for over an hour (on her steady cse/spd) before the incident (I am loath to call this an accident!).
Basically, if you read the full report you will see that the CO and other members of his crew (XO, OOD, watch coordinator, etc, etc, etc) simply fu#ed up trying to show off to the civilian guests on board. Prior to going deep, so that they could demonstrate an emergency surface, a periscope and ESM search was conducted. However, the full search tactic was not adhered to (only a third of the look was completed) and the fishing boat was not seen, even though at that time she was just over 1 nm away! During the emergency surface the CO allowed civilians to sit at and operate several important controls (including the helm and ballast control panel)! The result, one fisheries training ship sunk with 9 dead (4 teenage students, 3 teachers and 2 crew).
I am not saying that the military of other nations do not make mistakes, but it is the way the US make theirs, usually by not following their own or the host nations rules and regulations. I have seen USAF aircraft bounce controlled airspace, ATZ's and MATZ's in the uk on numerous occassions. I have seen them close up whilst on instrument approaches to airfields in the frozen north, as they make their way, disregarding their surrounds, to a nearby weapons range. We have all seen 2 pilots killed because they apparently did not understand the type of service they were receiving from the host nations ATC. We have seen them shoot up friendly vehicles with clear coallition markings displayed (even making several attack runs on them), we have seen them shoot up friendly forces in a designated training areas after being told not to engage. As I said, our military are not perfect, but at least we read and understand the rules and regulations, ROE's, etc. If we make errors by not following the rules we end up deep in the s#!t.
MadMark!!!
