First, we know the crew fought heroically to save their ship and the lives of their shipmates. We know that from early reports by Navy officials but also from the images that flashed across our screens, our tablets and our phones after the incident happened early Saturday.
One look at the crushed, twisted starboard side, the hoses flaked about, the water being discharged, the frantic work being done tells you all you need to know about the stuff you can't see in those same images: a fiercely brave crew working together to staunch the flooding, to rescue their shipmates and to save their ship.
You can be certain they ended up drenched, exhausted, scraped and bruised -- but not broken. They kept that ship from foundering for 16 brutal hours. And they brought her back into port.
We received an email from a Navy mother that raises serious questions. We will redact her name, while the rumors (and that's how they must be categorized for now) reported by her son aboard the Fitzgerald are checked out. Here is what she wrote to us:
My son is assigned to the USS Fitzgerald. I am unable to share his rate with you.
The information is short and not so sweet. The implications are disturbing.
The ship is registered in the Philippines. We do not know who the owner is. The container ship neither had its running lights or transponder on. That is an action taken willfully. Furthermore, for the container ship to strike with such accuracy is troublesome. Given what some have done with cars in Europe, what a feather in the cap it would be to sink a U.S. Navy warship. Think on that.
My son missed being washed out to sea by the blink of an eye. He was on his way to one of the berthing areas that was rammed.
Yes, language is important. "Rammed" is the perfect word.
Loving and Concerned Navy Mother
If there is any substance to this – that the ACX Crystal disabled protective systems and rammed the Fitzgerald at high speed aimed at critical facilities (evident from the damage)...
...we have to consider the possibility of an asymmetric warfare attack designed to disable the missile defense of a carrier strike group, as North Korea demonstrates the ability to make exactly such attacks on a multibillion-dollar warship carrying thousands of sailors.
Thanks for the post.
Michael Savage was adamant this is a possibility....
BUT BUT BUT where was the Fitz’s radar????
So what is being said by what you post is that a naval ship was attacked and the ship was so utterly unprepared and unaware that it did not prevent it. That there are countries that mean to destroy our navy is no surprise. That our navy seems unprepared to prevent its own destruction is horrific.
Even if a deliberate attempt, the crew fouled up bigly before the crash. Kudos to the damage control team. This didn’t have to happen.
“””The container ship neither had its running lights or transponder on”””
The problem with ‘loving and concerned Navy mother’s’ story is that the ACX Crystal did have its transponder on and that is why we know the path of the ACX Crystal. Unlike the Navy ships that apparently like to go ‘stealth’ in high traffic.
The US Navy has had six weeks to ‘investigate’ the collision. The longer the Navy waits to divulge the more guilty they become.
The Free Republic analysts have done a great job dissecting the collison. Too bad we cannot say the same about the mainstream media and Navy bloggers. At this point it appears the Fitzgerald will be found solely negligent.
Even if a container ship's helmsman decided to ram the destroyer, he should not have been ABLE to.
It's an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. It has a listed top speed of over 30 knots. An alert and competent bridge crew should have been able to evade collision with a lumbering container ship, no matter HOW much the container ship wanted to ram.
There was another ship (Wan Hai 266) in the area who's transponder was only transmitting intermittently.