by David Poyer
The next time I looked out, RYAN’s lights had suddenly become much brighter and closer. I immediately ordered all back emergency. RYAN’s lights closed rapidly. She passed under my bow so close she disappeared from sight under the overhang of the flight deck. The bow and forward stack reappeared on my starboard side. I thought for a moment he had cleared us. However, almost immediately KENNEDY struck RYAN midships on her starboard side. I stopped all engines as soon as it was evident we had hit.
Practically simultaneous with the collision, I ordered “light ship” and sounded collision quarters. I had already passed “man overboard” and called away fire and rescue parties when Admiral Hoelscher got to my bridge.
We then had a short conversation while KENNEDY coasted forward in the water. Meanwhile I was receiving damage reports. We were basically unhurt, but a JP-5 line under the starboard forward sponson had ruptured and leaked about 50 tons of fuel before it was secured. RYAN lay astern of us and was beginning to burn. The admiral made an observation, which had escaped me, about the special weapons she carried. I had not thought of this, but he had a point. Following his orders, when I was sure we had sound props, I gave ahead full and hard right rudder. We came around and I personally conned the ship through the burning portion of the destroyer.
After this, since the F-4s were reporting dry tanks, we got up to speed again and recovered them on a westerly course. When they were aboard I scrambled our ready rescue choppers after survivors.
Q. Now, will you continue your narrative and describe the search-and-rescue operation?
A. There is one thing I would like to put in before I do. I have prepared here a chart on which I and my officers reconstructed the tracks of RYAN and KENNEDY from the point at which we came right from zero-one-zero to the point where the collision occurred. It includes the proper maneuver RYAN should have followed and the track she did in fact follow.
Counsel for the Court requested that the reporter mark the chart Exhibit E. There being no objection, it was so marked and entered.
Q. I note that you have included ranges at various points between the two ships. Is this an estimate?
A. No, those are radar ranges.
Q. How is that possible? I understood that all ships were ordered to maintain radar silence.
A. That is so, and our ship’s radars were shut down. However, on my own initiative, I had used some discretionary funds to install a small Raytheon piloting radar. These are common on merchants. They don’t give you away as being a warship. It was a safety measure I liked to have.
The chart shows that KENNEDY was here at 0201 [indicating]. Then the turn signal was executed. Through the turn, we lost a certain amount of speed—three knots or so. There was a range of 3,100 yards to RYAN at that time, so she really was just about exactly on her assigned station. At this time here [indicating] the range was about 2,000 yards. After that it closed very rapidly.
The turn into danger seems to have occurred here, where RYAN made a sharp swerve to port. And this cross marks where the collision occurred.
Q. Captain, given that you were getting apparently minute-by-minute reports on where RYAN was, why did you not detect earlier that she was off course and headed across your bow?
A. That assumes I knew what her intentions were. In practice, we just assign stations. Each ship decides the best way to get there.
Q. But what I am asking is, at what point should you have realized she was not making a normal maneuver?
Counsel representing Commander Packer objected to this question on the grounds that it assumed facts not in evidence, viz. the captain of RYAN’s intentions.
The counsel for the Court withdrew the question.
Q. Please go on then, if you have completed that portion of your testimony, and describe the search-and-rescue operation.
A. Well, as I said, I also had my birds to worry about. We had ten men up there and some millions of dollars’ worth of planes that we had to get aboard or they’d be out of fuel and have to ditch. So the task group commander ordered the screen units to see to the survivors while we recovered aircraft. When they were safely aboard, we launched helos and steamed back to the site. By then both sections of RYAN had gone under.
I should also note that I ordered, when we were passing over RYAN, I ordered that all available lifesaving gear be tossed over from the fantail. Inventory shows we got over eleven life rafts and an undetermined number of life jackets, probably upwards of fifty.
Q. Went over from KENNEDY?
A. Yes.
Q. Please continue.
A. When we returned to the scene, about half an hour or forty minutes later, TALBOT, GARCIA, and DEWEY had boats in the water and searchlights going. I lowered two boats but did it standing off, as the destroyers with their lower freeboard were better for picking men up. There was so much stuff in the water, and we couldn’t tell till the boats were right up on it whether it was men or not, that there was no attempt to organize the search in a square or such. They just went in and picked up everyone they could find. I lowered the deck-edge elevator and the boats brought survivors; then they went back again. After about 0400 they came back empty. I sent them farther out. The helos got some, too.
Q. How long did you continue the search?
A. Till after dawn. Our boats got low on fuel then and I brought them back aboard.
Cross-examined by counsel for Commander Packer.
Q. Sir, did you have the conn at the time of collision?
A. I gave the order to back emergency. After that I maneuvered the ship. There was no explicit passing of the conn; as captain, I took it; it was understood.
Q. Who had it prior to that?
A. Lieutenant Commander Garner.
Q. And was Garner, in your opinion, a capable officer of the deck?
A. Yes, he’s quite capable.
Q. How long before actual contact did you give that backing order?
A. That’s hard to say. About a minute.
Q. Did it take effect?
A. I have to say I doubt it. Not in that space of time, on something the size of a carrier.
Q. Did you give any danger signal, or any whistle signal prior to the collision?
A. No.
Q. Why not?
A. I felt it would be confusing. We had so little time. If I got one blast out, it would have meant to RYAN that I was turning to starboard. If they had heard two, it would have meant I was turning to port. I judged it best to give no signal.
Q. When you realized collision was imminent, you said you gave the order to “light ship.” That order means, I believe, to show all lights—deck-edge lights, landing lights, working lights, and so forth.
A. That is correct.
Q. Why did you not order only the navigation and running lights turned to full?
A. I preferred to light ship.
Q. Could that have confused the captain of RYAN? There are many lights aboard a carrier.
A. I can’t speculate on that. I wanted to be as visible as possible.
Q. Captain, I now call your attention to Section 567 of the Allied Tactical Maneuvering Instructions. “When ships are darkened, and any ship considers herself endangered by another, she is to switch on navigation lights.” Later it says, “When it is necessary to change formation, formation axis, or course of a screened unit, navigation lights may be switched on if it is not certain that ships will clear each other.”
A. All I can say is, I didn’t have time to refer to the instructions.
Q. Well, in the process, were your navigation lights turned on bright or not?
A. I can’t say for certain at this point. I assume they were, along with everything else.
Cross-examined by counsel for Lieutenant Evlin.
Q. Captain, let us return to the signals exchanged just before the collision. As best you recall, what was the wording of the message that assigned RYAN plane guard?
A. As I said, Lieutenant Commander Garner had not included that in his original m
essage. RYAN came back and asked whether they were to take it. His response was affirmative.
Q. Did you consider that answer as an order to take a different course from the formation course you ordered?
A. It was not a course order. It was permission to adjust her maneuvers so as to get into station.
Q. Was there any reference to how soon she was needed there?
A. No.
Q. In fact, how soon did you actually need her astern of you?
A. We would have had then twenty minutes or so to the first aircraft recovery.
Q. How often do aircraft go into the water, so that the guard ship is in fact needed?
A. Not every day, but it happens. Last year an A-4 had an engine failure on takeoff, went in off the bow, and we steamed right over her. She sank that fast. But the pilot came up from about forty feet, and the plane guard had him aboard in about three minutes. All he needed was a change of underwear.
Q. Let’s go on to the last signal you sent. That is the signal changing your recovery course to two-five-zero.
A. Yes.
Q. I am not clear on your testimony as to whether RYAN receipted for that message.
A. I believe she did.
Q. Did you hear it?
A. No, I believe my officer of the deck did, though.
Q. We have heard testimony to the effect that Mr. Len-son, the officer remaining from RYAN’s bridge team, heard no such message.
A. Well, I am not prepared positively to state that we had a reply. As I said, we had trouble hearing RYAN’s transmissions. We had something from her at that point, but I can’t say for certain—
Q. Let us leave it at that, then. The point is, you changed course toward the destroyer, without a certainty that she had heard your signal.
A. I suppose so, in a way. However, I must point out that we in fact had not come to two-five-zero when the collision occurred. We’d only come to about two-five-five. If I had remained on two-six-zero, RYAN might have struck us amidships, instead of our striking her, but the collision would still have occurred. That course change made no difference.
Q. Let us look again at the light situation. You have said that you had lights burning other than running lights, presumably dimmed landing lights. Were there any other lights burning on your ship?
A. Yes, but they could not have been seen from a low platform like a destroyer.
Q. Would you describe the location and color of the aircraft landing lights on the KENNEDY?
A. They were all around red lights.
Q. How many, and where?
A. Two, on the mast.
Q. How far apart?
A. About 6 feet, I think.
Q. The point I am getting at, Captain, is that as those lights are positioned, could RYAN’s captain have mistaken them for your port running lights? And since they were higher, might he not have thought KENNEDY was farther away than she in fact was?
A. I suppose that is possible.
Q. I submit to the court that in view of the multiplicity of lights on the carrier, their color, and their location, this combination of design flaws, along with the confused response of Captain Javits to the imminence of collision, in lighting ship instead of brightening only his navigation lights, as doctrine in fact specifies should be done, were contributing factors in the collision.
THE COURT: Mr. Barrett, you are not in a civilian court. We are capable of hearing testimony without the accompaniment of flamboyant rhetoric.
MR. BARRETT: Thank you, sir. I have no further questions of this witness.
The court then, at 1300, took a recess until 1415.
* * *
DURING the last part of Javits’s testimony, Dan’s arm had become a throbbing sizzle of steadily growing pain. He had to pay attention, he kept telling himself; but he needed medication more.
When the last admiral left the courtroom, he picked up the notebook in which he had been keeping track of the points each witness made, and headed, after the others, for the door. On the way his eyes met theirs: Bryce, glaring back; Lassard, sneering, whispering to Greenwald; Hauck, meeting his gaze expressionlessly before bending back to his papers. There was an old man beside him Dan didn’t recognize, a geezer in a blue suit and string tie.
In the men’s room, an Air Force major was shaving at one of the sinks. Dan pulled out the envelope and took a tablet. Then he gulped another, sucking water from the cup of his right hand.
He let himself into a stall and eased off his blouse. He rubbed his face, wishing he felt better. Well, a double dose, it should start working soon.
He sat there for some minutes, thinking. He couldn’t tell how the trial was going. There didn’t seem to be any point spread developing. But he was never sure he hadn’t missed something. If he wasn’t dopy, he hurt too much to concentrate. He worried about addiction, then smiled wryly to himself. A few months at sea would take care of that.
If they let him go to sea again.
The toilet flushed in the stall next to him. Thinking of his arm, he fingered the dressing. It was bulky gauze stained the color of sauterne where skin emerged. He’d seen the burn while the doctors were dressing it. An ugly slab of scorched meat, with blisters that broke and ran fluid. It extended from his back over his shoulder and down his arm. He must have hit the oil when his arm was up, swimming. Or jerked it up instinctively to protect his eyes. The gauze stank of ointment and rancid bodily fluids. He smoothed it down again and eased back into his uniform blouse.
If he got to sea again. As the testimony seesawed, first with Barrett gaining ground for Packer and, by definition, Evlin, then tipping against Ryan, his apprehension grew. He wanted the dead absolved. If the trial went against Javits and Hoelscher, then Packer and Evlin were innocent, and so was he.
But whether the blame came to rest on them or not, he wouldn’t escape the stain. He’d lived again everything he’d done in the dying minutes of his ship, and judged himself wanting. As Johnstone had pointed out, he had not warned the captain. He hadn’t replaced Lassard as lookout. He hadn’t checked the running lights. He hadn’t worked out the maneuver himself, as a backup.
At Annapolis they told stories of that worst thing that could happen in a career at sea; more terrible than death. They said that when the court-martial was over, you were called into a room where the judges waited around a green table. A sword lay on it. If its hilt was toward you, as you came in, it meant you could draw breath; you were free. If the point was toward you, all that remained was to hear sentence pronounced.…
He set his cap and reached for the door.
The cafeteria tables were littered with the leavings of Pentagon officials, civilian analysts, contractors. A few were still eating; one was an Army three-star, surrounded by a bevy of thickset men in suits wearing admission badges on chains. He picked up a tray and got in line for beef tips on noodles.
He bumped into Reed at the checkout. “Hey, Aaron.”
“Hey.”
“How much longer, you think?”
“I get the feeling they’d like to wind up.”
He hesitated, wanting to sit with the ASW officer, but decided it wouldn’t look right. Instead he found a dirty table off by himself. The food was cotton wool in his dry mouth. At last he gave up and just drew and quartered the Jell-O with his fork. Gradually the medication took effect. His pain faded. His anxiety sidled back into the shadows.
“Dan? Got a minute?”
He recognized the voice first. He raised his eyes and blinked slowly. Alan Evlin was sitting across from him, in the same khakis he’d worn on the bridge.
“What the hell—?”
“Not so loud. Just whisper, okay?”
“But you can’t be here. Are you really here?”
Evlin raised his eyebrows, his expression whenever Dan had uttered some absurd naïveté. The overhead lights glinted on the round lenses of his glasses. “Of course not. How could I be? But we still had some things to discuss. If you don’t want to—”
/> “No, I mean yes, go ahead, I’m listening. You been following the trial? Deanne’s got you counsel—sharp, a civvie lawyer. Anything, uh, anything you want me to tell her?”
“Don’t babble. No, nothing she doesn’t already know. About my counsel and that, the trial—it’s not important. Not to me. It’s mainly for her peace of mind.”
“Well … then … why?” He felt stupid and, unaccountably, afraid.
“Remember our last talk?”
“Yes.”
“You’re doing fine. I told you you would. You make mistakes but never the same one twice.”
“Thanks.” He had a sudden thought. “You don’t know—say, can you tell me what they’re going to decide?”
“Who? The court?” Evlin seemed to find that amusing. “Does that matter?”
“Maybe not to you. But it’s not going right, Al.”
“Remember the waves?”
“Sure I remember.”
“Don’t let the lies and insinuations scare you. Stick to the truth as you see it.”
“They don’t believe me.”
“So what does that change? Just keep telling it. Till somebody’s ready to listen. Remember, everything’s for the best.”
“It is, huh?”
“Yes. That’s all I really wanted to tell you. All you have a need to know. That everything will turn out all right at the wrap-up.”
“Okay,” said Dan, still not trusting it but unwilling to contradict Evlin. But then he thought, If this is really him, then I’ve got to believe it. And then: But is this really him? A lassitude was soaking him, making him blink and yawn. He looked down at shimmering green and moved his fork with an effort, dreamlike, everything slow like underwater. Damn, he thought, I shouldn’t have taken two.
“Sir?”
When he looked up again, it was not to Evlin’s face but that of a marine guard, one of the big ones. “You one of them off the Ryan? Court’s getting ready to reconvene.”
