Sub skipper 'full of contradictions'
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By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Standing in the sail of his submarine, bragging about his boat to visitors, Cmdr. Scott Waddle was a cigar-chompin', story-tellin' Texan.
Advertiser library photo • March 7, 2001
Sitting in the witness box a month later, battling for his reputation and his future, Waddle stared through round, gold-framed glasses at the three admirals in front of him and studiously analyzed their questions.
Cmdr. Scott Waddle believes his naval career is over.
In many ways, the different sides of Waddle's persona were shaped by the Navy that gave him an academy ring, then disillusioned him on one of his first submarine tours.
It was the same Navy that later offered Waddle command of a 6,900-ton warship and provided a father figure in the form of a larger-than life submariner nicknamed "Big Al, The Sailor's Pal" Konetzni, Jr.
Waddle's boat, the USS Greeneville, was a reflection of its complicated captain — the pride of the Pacific Fleet's sub force.
After 2 1/2 weeks and testimony from 33 witnesses, a Navy court of inquiry last week finished its investigation to learn how one of its best ships and its best captains could crash into a training boat off Diamond Head, leaving nine Japanese teenagers, teachers and crew dead.
The answers at times pointed as much to Waddle the man and Waddle the captain as to any of the malfunctioning instruments, poor decisions and hasty maneuvers that plagued the Greeneville on Feb. 9 just before it shot to the surface in an "emergency blow."
Capt. Robert Brandhuber, chief of staff of the fleet's submarine force, went aboard the Greeneville that day for a variety of reasons — to escort 16 civilian visitors, to visit his son-in-law, the Greeneville's engineering officer, and to solve his own riddle:
"Because of Capt. Waddle's image and personality and gregarious, outgoing manner and capabilities," Brandhuber testified at the court of inquiry, "I sometimes wondered if it was more show than it was go."
The blistering criticisms and questions Waddle faced for nearly six hours clearly indicated that the admirals thought he was more show.
They also saw troubling glimpses beyond the image that Waddle carried with him on shore at Pearl Harbor — "on the waterfront" as they say in the Navy.
On the final, dramatic day of the court of inquiry, Waddle showed himself to be a man of contradictions: He took "full responsibility" for the accident, then blamed his crew for letting him down.
For days, he and his lawyer indicated that he wouldn't testify with immunity from prosecution, and then Waddle did so anyway, having apparently made up his mind from the beginning, his attorney said.
When he did testify, he sparred with the admirals and fought for control of the proceedings by dissecting their questions point by point. He was the only witness to direct the court's personnel to retrieve various pieces of evidence to illustrate his testimony.
And he was defiant.
Waddle began the day by reading a statement in which he worried about being "sacrificed to an unwarranted court-martial."
Then, in the afternoon, he was contrite and reserved.
But did the admirals ever see the real Waddle?
"We got a mixed signal all the way through," said Jay Fidell, a former Coast Guard lawyer and court of inquiry investigator who watched all 12 days of the proceedings. "The most obvious phenomenon we saw was a guy full of contradictions. He would take responsibility, but he would always try to deny that he was at fault."
Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Waddle's personality was the way he came back from the verbal beating he took in the morning.
"It was quite notable to see that internal strength," Fidell said. "He stopped fighting the questions. He wasn't arguing with the admirals. Most people finding themselves on that slippery, black slope would not be able to recover. "
Associated Press library photo • March 20, 2001
Waddle had already said by then that the collision with the Ehime Maru ended his 19-year Navy career.
A Japanese media member takes a break while covering the inquiry. On his laptop is a photo of Cmdr. Scott Waddle and his wife, Jill.
He was the son of a retired Air Force colonel, the stepson of a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. He was raised in Austin, Texas, but graduated in 1977 from Forrest Sherman High School in Naples, Italy, where he was a member of the National Honor Society, won the lead in the school musical, played football and dated a cheerleader.
Waddle graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1981 and served aboard the submarines Alabama, Kentucky and San Francisco.
Early in his Navy career, Waddle testified, he worked for a demanding commanding officer who was "slow to praise, but quick to criticize" and gave him thoughts of quitting the Navy.
Waddle then returned to the Naval Academy, where he met a gregarious, boisterous Navy captain named Al Konetzni, Jr., who slapped Waddle on the back and invited him to chat.
"That was the first time ever in my career," Waddle said, "that a Navy captain, a submariner that I didn't know, took an interest in me. And that began that relationship."
Konetzni loves cigars, cognac and conversation. And when Waddle took over the Greeneville in Pearl Harbor years later, he found himself working for "Big Al, the Sailor's Pal," who had become a two-star admiral and commander of the Pacific Fleet's submarine force.
Konetzni told the court of inquiry that he loved Waddle like a son. Waddle said he loved Konetzni like a father.
"Sometimes I had trouble understanding captain Waddle and the admiral," Brandhuber testified.
But the relationship was clear to even the spectators at the court of inquiry.
On the waterfront, Konetzni's aura cast a glow over Waddle that spread to his crew and his submarine, Fidell said.
"What you have here is a submarine commander on a fast track to admiral who was well-liked and, by hook or crook or luck, had connections to submarine commanders," Fidell said. "They saw him as a fair-haired boy, one of their leaders, one of their stars."
And that — more than anything else — may have been the real reason for the oversights and sloppiness that put the Greeneville on a collision course with the Ehime Maru.
"His confidence was more important than the reality," Fidell said. "If Cmdr. Waddle didn't see a ship up there (through the Greeneville's periscope), then it didn't exist. He gave himself more credit than he deserved."
The same thing happened when Waddle took the witness stand on Tuesday, Fidell said.
"He took a heroic step of opening up himself to cross-examination," Fidell said. "But he miscalculated. Then he had to sit there and just take it."
Dan Nakaso can be reached by phone at 525-8085, or by e-mail at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com.
