CAPT. CHARLES HILL was relieved from his position as commanding officer of the USS West Virginia due to a "loss of confidence" relating to the command environment aboard the boat during Hill's first patrol as commander.
Posted on 01/03/2009 10:58:05 AM PST by SmithL
A loss of confidence has resulted in the temporary reassignment of a submarine's commanding officer at Naval Submarine Base, Kings Bay, Navy officials announced in a written statement on Monday.
Although there were no major incidents reported after Capt. Charles Hill's first patrol as the commanding officer of the USS West Virginia, he was temporarily reassigned to the office of Submarine Squadron 20.
According to the written statement by the Submarine Group 10 public affairs office, Hill was relieved from his position as commanding officer due to a loss of confidence relating to the command environment aboard the USS West Virginia.
Hill took command of the USS West Virginia's Gold crew in July and completed his first patrol as the vessel's commanding officer, said Lt. Rebecca Rebarich.
"There was no specific incident. It was a condition relating to the command climate that was brought before the commander of Submarine Squadron 16/20's attention after the first patrol that resulted in the commander's loss of confidence in Hill's ability," Rebarich said.
Former commanding officer of the USS Rhode Island Capt. Stephen Gillespie replaced Hill as commander of the USS West Virginia. Gillespie is currently the deputy for Training at Submarine Squadron 16/20.
The gold crew, which is experiencing this change in command, is at the homeport, Kings Bay, in training. The blue and gold crews alternate in taking the Trident submarines out on patrol.
More from The Navy Times: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/01/navy_firedskipper_123008/
career over....
I am betting that this is what you get with liberal education
This sounds odd, Whats the rest of the story. A boomer CO does not get relieved unless he has a real issue. You don’t (or at least did not) become a CO without being vetted pretty well before hand. Well I guess we are in a new age where vetting is a thing of the past heck our prez-ele was never vetted.
There has to be more to the story. And the captain’s career is over. What happened?
Maybe the problem here was that the CO could not find the strawberries despite his best efforts.
Someone threw his potted palm tree overboard.
I see it’s an Ohio class vessel. What’s the main difference between an Ohio and LA class sub?
LA class is a fast attack boat performing typical submarine duties. Carries torpedoes & cruise missiles.
Ohio class is a Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM or Boomer) boat and can pretty much make the world go away by itself.
Yup. It could be for something he didn't do...like letting a stressful situation persist without taking action.
Our CO *and* CMC were removed for Loss of Confidence. It was actually called something else, but whatever it was called (forced retirement, reassignment), they were immediately relieved of duty upon inspection by the IG and the command morale was much improved.
Failed ORSE, TRE, NTPI, NWAI or somesuch other inspection would be my guess.
about 100 feet and 24 missile tubes.
I agree with you 100%...i saw it myself.
My guess is still something aft of frame 57 (or whichever frame separates the Ops compartment from the RC on a hotel). If not an outright ORSE failure, NRRO is most definately involved.
I had a skipper once that made Queeg look like the second coming of Mush Morton. But we always managed at least a SAT on ORSE and TRE is all was good.
Maybe he openly questioned Obama.
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