How does this happen?

Source?

 

I fail to see how training to avoid collision with a merchant ship during peacetime would affect war readiness. Kind of like needing to train to crash into walls to be able to race at Indy.

 

That's a bit of a straw man. I was speaking (I thought obviously) in more general terms. I.e. essentially terminating the career of the captain of a ship because of a single incident related to his ship isn't IMO a very sound policy. In some cases it may be warranted but certainly not all.

 

I was thinking about Nimitz as a rather graphic example. Looked up the wrong incident though. In todays navy it would likely end his career and that of his captain at the time.

 

Maybe there was something on cargo ship that had to be stopped.
Just throwing this out there - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/possible-dirty-bomb-docked-ship-evacuation-terminal-c

 

Navy saying: One "Ah $#!+" wipes out a lot of "Attaboys".

 

Nimitz, was convicted of a lesser charge, but his punishment did not include the dreaded "loss of numbers" that would have killed his career. Further, it probably would have killed his career in surface ships, had Nimitz not been able to forge a new career in diesel engines and submarines - then in it's infancy. This allowed him to return to the Navy's good graces. Nowadays, there are few, any, new fields for naval officers to forge new careers. Finally, Nimitz, as an ensign with only two years of service in was at the beginning of his naval career, whereas, nowadays, most commanding officers are well into their given career path.

Captain William D. Brown, who took the USS Missouri a-half-mile-inland, would go on to serve another 4-5 years, but never held another seagoing command. He retired a rear admiral, which I believe was a "tombstone promotion."

In the infamous John Kennedy/Belknap collision, the Kennedy's skipper suffered no harm to his career, but then again, he had done nothing wrong, and had acted in an admirable fashion. The Belknap's captain was acquitted in his courts-martial, retired as a captain.

Commander John Cochrane, captain of the USS Kinkaid, when she collided with a civilian freighter in the Straits of Malacca, was acquitted in his courts-martial. How he fared after this, I do not know, but interviews with him, at the time, have him painting a rather dim outlook on his future.

In the same vein, the skipper, Captain John Carroll, captain of the USS Port Royal that went aground at Pearl, back in 2009, received non-judicial punishment for“dereliction of duty and improper hazarding of a vessel.” Has it killed his career...Don't know, I have not been able to find anything on him since the grounding.

Ensign Nimitz was the ship's captain.

 

A destroyer was commanded by an ensign? I know they were smaller back then but I would have though at least a full Lt would have been the captain.

 

I'd like to think it costs an awful lot of time and treasure to create someone capable of commanding a warship, and that mishaps and accidents, even tragic ones, didn't automatically squander that resource. Lessons learnt, etc.
I'd like to think that, but as I have zero knowledge of US Navy investigation and disciplinary procedures I'll go no further.

The two ships tracks are easily found, but again, my nautical knowledge lets me down. The sort of thing conspiracy types can 'interpret' for years. (See! See that northward jink! Etc., Ad nauseum.)

Grim news, though. As more detailed accounts of the losses filter out.
Commiserations to the USN family.

 

70-some odd men. Usually, a Lieutenant did have command, however, Lieutenant Junior Grades & Ensigns were given command. An Ensign succeeded Nimitz, and another Ensign succeeded him in command of the Decatur.

You can go through the Destroyers section on Navsource, the list the commanders of all the early DDs in each DD page.
Destroyer Photo Index DD-5 USS DECATUR

 

Not automatically, per se, there is always an investigation, and if warranted, a courts-martial. However, the ones that usually benefit from "lessons learnt" tend not to be the ones that committed said actions.

You can read a good many selected investigations on the JAG Corps' website.
JAG Manual Investigations | U.S. Navy JAG Corps

Could you please post a link to the USS Fitzgerald track, as it is not easy for me to find - The USS Fitzgerald was running with her AIS(Automatic Identification System) turned off(as such any data concerning her track will be a guess, unless it is an official USN release). This is why many sites are showing only the track of the ACX Crystal, but none that I have seen so far have showed the USS Fitzgerald, nor does the USS Fitzgerald or her track appear on any of these ZCX Crystal track movement recordings.

For example...

What's missing? The USS Fitzgerald. Lots of other vessels, but no Fitzgerald.

These can be quickly squashed.

In the above video of the ACX Crystal's track...Watch the ship, Wan Hai 266, directly north of the ACX Crystal...The Wan Hai 266 duplicates the ACX Crystal's movement also exactly, including the slight turn north at almost the same time. They are in a shipping lane.

 

My apologies. The bloke who's feed I'd looked at lines on has now added that he estimated the US ship's track.
Like I say - my nautical knowledge: diddly.

Turned off... more grist for the conspiracy mill.

 

A gazillion dollar destroyer (and top notch crew) being hit by a hundred million dollar container vessel (crewed by ?).
Truth is stranger than conspiracy theories.
Er...conspiracy is stranger than truth...no wait.
I got this.
Surely, there is nothing other than 2 gigantic, electronically directed ships simply colliding on the open sea.
Can't wait for Elon Musk and those electronic cars.
Maybe chicks were at the helm. That would 'splain everything.
I kid, I kid...

 

Happens more often than you would think.

Oh, great! Then, we will be paying 7 times what the ship is worth.

On the other hand, the exorbitant costs of the Musk ships will mean a much smaller navy. Less bang for many many more bucks.

 

Was he in charge of the Iraqi uniforms? Millions spent on a "forest" design...pfft! Wouldn't be happy as a US taxpayer...just read an article on Israeli and Russians testing launching missiles from container ships...truth is catching up with fiction.