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| USS Fitzgerald after collision with a Cargo Ship |
By: David B. Larter
WASHINGTON — The second deadly collision in as many months between a U.S. destroyer and a larger, slower commercial ship in Asian waters has shaken the U.S. Navy to its foundations and raised questions about the fleet’s readiness in the most congested and volatile region on earth.
The collision between the McCain and an oil tanker three times its size outside the Strait of Malacca was the most recent of four incidents in the U.S. 7th Fleet, which has included three collisions and a grounding that caused an oil spill in Tokyo Bay. While these accidents have been shocking, with a total of 17 sailors killed, there have been signs that all is not well in the 7th Fleet or the U.S. Navy more broadly for some time.
A series of warnings and alarming incidents have raised red flags about forward-deployed ships, which operate at a much higher tempo than their stateside counterparts but have also seen readiness eaten away by too much time at sea and too little time to train and maintain.
That will be the subject of a review ordered by Adm. John Richardson, chief of Naval Operations, who directed Fleet Forces Command head Adm. Phil Davidson to look at the training and readiness of forward-deployed sailors in Japan.
“There’s the longer-term review that I’ve asked Adm. Davidson, down in fleet forces command, to undertake,” Richardson said.
“This will be a broader effort, looking at a number of things. One being, what is the situation out in Japan with our forward-deployed naval forces out there? How are they executing their business? I just want to understand that more deeply in terms of training, generating that readiness that we’ve asked them to achieve and then certifying that readiness.”
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