 Ehime Maru's captain to testify today
'I didn't understand how it happened'
Account of actual collision yet to be heard
Mori to visit accident site during stop in Hawai'i
A Tribute to the Missing
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By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Nearly a week before the USS Greeneville crashed into the Ehime Maru fishing vessel, the submarine’s navigator suggested that the captain give his junior officers more experience running the ship — a suggestion that was soundly rejected.
Cmdr. Scott Waddle preferred his own "directive" style of being in control of the Greeneville, Lt. Keith Sloan testified yesterday. And it’s a style that’s increasingly becoming the focus of the Navy’s court of inquiry into the Feb. 9 crash that left nine Japanese dead.
"He basically told me that he was happy with the way he was doing it," Sloan said. "I didn’t necessarily agree with it, but that’s the way it was going to be."
By taking command of the Greeneville from the junior officers of the deck, witnesses have testified, Waddle’s style may have intimidated the crew, who didn’t speak up about potential problems.
No one aboard the Greeneville questioned how quickly Waddle searched for surface ships through the ship’s periscope. And no one mentioned a sonar contact that turned out to be the Ehime. Even the Pacific Fleet’s chief of staff aboard the Greeneville that day didn’t say anything.
"I was concerned that we might have been going a little bit faster than I would go," Capt. Robert Brandhuber said yesterday. "... But I was having a debate with myself that this is a professional CO and crew and ... his team seems to be supporting him."
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