Navy’s Report on Fitzgerald Collision Is Evidence Of Corruption

Two months after the USS Fitzgerald’s June 18 collision with a freighter in the Sea Of Japan, the Navy announced that the ship’s commanding officer, executive officer, and senior enlisted man were being relieved of their positions. It cited “loss of confidence” in them, and released a lengthy report on what happened aboard the ship after the collision. That report, however, contains no hint of accusation of improper or insufficient behavior on anyone’s part. It is silent about what actions on the part of the Fitz led to the collision in the first place, citing “continuing investigation.”

But the indisputable facts about the ship’s courses, speeds, and decisions prior to the collision were in the Navy’s hands the moment that it returned to Yokusuka, if not before. In sum the Navy, by punishing officers whose responsibility was merely formal and by avoiding discussion of who made what actual decisions, suggests to the attentive reader by what it says and by what it withholds, that it is hiding its own corporate responsibility.

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