Japanese briefed by Navy officers

Associated Press

TOKYO — U.S. Navy officers met today with local Japanese government officials to explain possible disciplinary action facing the skipper of a submarine that sank a Japanese high school fishing training vessel.

Nine aboard the ship, including four students, died as a result of the Feb. 9 collision when the USS Greeneville hit and sank the Ehime Maru nine miles off the coast of O'ahu.

Rear Adm. Robert Chaplin, commander of the U.S. Naval Forces in Japan, and eight other officers met with Moriyuki Kato, the governor of Ehime prefecture, where the training ship was based, said a prefectural official who declined to give his name.

The meeting was held in the prefectural capital of Matsuyama, 422 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The Navy officers were to meet later today with relatives of the nine victims in the city of Uwajima, the place of the fishing high school.

The prefectural official declined to reveal details, but Pacific Fleet spokesman Jon Yoshishige in Honolulu said the U.S. side was to brief the Japanese on all punishment possibilities ranging from a court-martial to a letter of reprimand.

Earlier this week, U.S. defense officials said Cmdr. Scott Waddle is likely to receive punishment short of a court martial.