PavewayIV posted this in another thread. Note that there’s a link included going to the original translator on another site.
Excerpt begins:
The English Reuters article gives a garbled picture of what happened. Translation issues? Editing? No idea, but I found a better account from a poster estarzinger post #421 on CruiserForum http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f90/us-navy-destroyer-collision-186441-29.html
Perhaps a one-step better translation . . . .* “This is my English translation of the same report by Reuters in Japan in Japanese.
ACX Crystal captain wrote to the company that while cruising to Tokyo bay at 18 knots, TWO watch crews of ACX found the destroyer on 40 degree port side 3NM in distance around 1:15AM. 5 minutes later the destroyer suddenly started moving and continued on their collision course. While manually steering, ACX gave caution to the navy ship by turning on/off the light without any reaction. then decided to take hard starboard turn for collision avoidance but both ships crashed around 1:30AM.* Takeshi from Yokohama”
Probably still not perfectly accurate representation of details from the actual captain’s report
Excerpt ends.
The description of the original location of the Fitzgerald is what I was using to place them ahead of and on the course of the Wan Hai. On examining it further, I just now noted the comment that the Fitzgerald started moving five minutes later. If the Fitzgerald was indeed stationary at 1:15, and two to three miles ahead of the Wan Hai, the Wan Hai could have gotten quite close to the Fitzgerald in those five minutes. Maybe it even got under a mile distant. (All speculation, of course.)
But if that’s close to being the case, the OOD would have had two things to worry about, getting underway and out of the way of the approaching Wan Hai, and wondering whether the captain should be notified. From the description of the captain of the Crystal, it appears the OOD of the Fitzgerald remained unaware of the Crystal right up to the time of the collision. I find it hard to believe that no one on the Fitzgerald was aware of the existence of the Crystal, but whoever knew apparently was unsuccessful in getting the information relayed to, or perhaps just understood, by the OOD.
On the website you posted there is another translation further down. The Wan Kai 266 was on a parallel course, slightly behind, and about two miles to the port side of the ACX Crystal.
Not sure how the three miles between the USS Fitzgerald and the ACX Crystal works.
“”About 5 minutes later, the Aegis vessel “suddenly” moved [from the Japanese it is not clear whether this was a move from a stationary condition or a change in movement, i.e. a course change].””
I would think the ‘sudden movement’ was a course change. This makes it sound almost as though the Fitzgerald was committing suicide.
Here’s a link to the Japanese-language article on the Reuters Japan website:
https://jp.reuters.com/article/fitzgerald-idJPKBN19H12U
And here’s my own (entirely unauthorized) quick translation of it. I make my living as a translator from Japanese, but I give no guarantees as to absence of errors, and in any case, there are always any number of ways a given Japanese sentence can be rendered in English. Here I tried to be as literal as possible, though. The article also (as is often the case in Japanese) does not clearly differentiate between quotations and the rest of the article. The first paragraph is basically a summary, and the second and third paragraphs are descriptions of the content of the report. From “In this collision” onwards, it’s back to Reuters’ journalistic writing.
[Tokyo, June 26, Reuters] The content of a report submitted by the captain of the container ship that collided with an Aegis class destroyer of the U.S. Navy off the Izu peninsula to the owners of the container ship has come to light. The container ship spotted the Aegis vessel on its port side and tried to attract its attention by means of flashing a light, but the U.S. ship maintained its course. The container vessel then tried to turn to the right to avoid a collision, but there was not enough time.
According to the report, the Philippine-flagged container ship ACX Crystal was heading towards Tokyo Bay at a speed of 18 knots (about 33 km/h). At 01:15 a.m. on June 17, two lookouts spotted the Aegis class vessel Fitzgerald at 40 degrees off the port side at a distance of 3 nm (about 5.6 km).
About 5 minutes later, the Aegis vessel “suddenly” moved [from the Japanese it is not clear whether this was a move from a stationary condition or a change in movement, i.e. a course change]. Because a collision seemed likely on this course, the container ship, while manually steering, tried to attract the attention of the other ship by flashing a light. However, the American vessel seemed to maintain its course. The container ship therefore turned the rudder hard to starboard, but at 01:30 a.m. the two ships collided.
In this collision, seven members of the crew of the Aegis vessel lost their lives, making it the worst tragedy for a U.S. navy vessel since the bomb attack on an Aegis class vessel in Yemen in 2000. The captain of the Fitzgerald was wounded in his own quarters, which suggests the possibility that no warning was sounded prior to the collision.
The owners of the ACX Crystal, Dainichi-Invest Corporation (based in Kobe, Hyogo Pref.) declined to respond to inquiries by Reuters, saying that they could not provide any comment in relation to an ongoing investigation. The U.S. Navy, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the Japan Coast Guard which are investigating the accident also declined to comment.