 Sub inquiry focuses on style of leadership
'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 Mike Gordon and Susan Roth
Advertiser News Services
The captain of the Japanese fishing vessel Ehime Maru will take the witness stand for the first time this morning, and his words may be some of the most powerful spoken during a Navy court of inquiry.
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| Ehime Maru captain Hisao Onishi has returned to Hawai‘i to testify.
Advertiser library photo • Feb. 24, 2001 |
Hisao Onishi lost his ship, his friends and four 17-year-old boys under his care when the submarine USS Greeneville surfaced beneath his vessel Feb. 9 during a violent maneuver called a "main emergency ballast blow." The actions of the Greeneville skipper, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, are the focus of the inquiry.
The captains have never met, but they will face each other in the tiny, crowded courtroom at Pearl Harbor, 15 feet apart at the very most.
Waddle, who last week apologized to the victims’ family members attending the trial, Monday asked a Japanese official escorting the families if he could also speak with Onishi. The Japanese skipper has demanded an apology from the Greeneville commander. But the rules of the court of inquiry, similar to a civilian trial, may not allow them to speak.
Onishi first told his story to a room full of reporters the day after the accident. It was painful to watch. The 58-year-old captain never looked up as the words slowly spilled out.
He had seen the submarine, felt the collision, watched the ship begin to sink. His ship. Everyone was supposed to meet at a designated place during an emergency. He thought everyone was there.
When he described the realization that they were not all there, he wept. He would say later that his heart was broken.
Some of the families of the victims who have been attending the trial, which enters its eighth day today, have eagerly anticipated Onishi’s testimony.
Kazuo Nakata, father of teacher Jyun Nakata, who was among those lost at sea, has said hearing Onishi speak about the accident was one of his main reasons for making the trip to Hawai‘i. Though some family members left Honolulu after the first week of testimony, four more arrived over the weekend.
For the first time today, they will be able to easily understand what is happening in the courtroom. Though the families have been hearing simultaneous translation via earphones, today Onishi will bring a familiarity to a courtroom where all the proceedings have been in English. For the Americans, court assistants will provide translation from Japanese into English.
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