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Let’s finish the job.

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You are here: Home / Politics / America / The Navy Hymn

Reader Interactions

36Comments

  6. 6.

    J R in WV

    Not really a surprise for me, but horrible and sad. Better than lost at sea for their families.

    I saw a depiction of the cargo ship’s course before the collision, and it was very strange; now I can’t locate that image anywhere, which is also strange.

    Thanks for the hymn, Adam, been a very long time since I heard it.

    I hope the injured are doing well.

    RIP…

  7. 7.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Dammit. Such hard news.

    I can’t listen to the Navy Hymn without crying – I’m a Navy brat and I heard it at too many memorial services as a kid.

  8. 8.

    Cookie Monster

    No connection to armed forces in general, but horrible news just from a human perspective. I feel so bad for their families.

  9. 9.

    Elizabelle

    Sad news. Hope every sailor is accounted for. Peace be on them, and on their families. Soldiers and sailors tend to be young. Sad loss for all of us.

  11. 11.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @J R in WV: Item 3 here. As one of the responses to ESNEET’s image points out, timestamps suggest that the first turn could have been the ACX Crystal returning to offer assistance after the collision and the second may be a “hold position”.

  13. 13.

    efgoldman

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    The Navy Hymn always makes me cry

    I first encountered it in the mid-50s; I was ten or eleven and whatever network it was used it as the program theme in a 1/2 hour format, starring Richard Boone.
    Mad me cry then, made me cry ever since.
    I hope their families and friends find peace.

  14. 14.

    bystander

    The idiot who shot up the repubs had provided just the pretext the rabid trumputinites need.

    They’re not just targeting Shakespeare in the Park or even its parent, The Public Theater. They’re going after anything with Shakespeare in its name.

    Have I mentioned lately how much I hate these morans?

  17. 17.

    Adria McDowell (formerly Lurker Extraordinaire

    @bystander: Are they going to demand that all high school quit having students read the Bard’s works, too?

    Fuck these ignoramuses. Ignoramos. Ignorami? Whatever.

  18. 18.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @efgoldman: I learned it in public school as a seventh grader. It’s right up there with Schubert’s Ave Maria as sacred music that moves even the most secular.

    Requiescat in pace.

  20. 20.

    stinger

    Thank you for posting this. Moving rendition of a moving hymn. RIP sailors and peace to their families.

  21. 21.

    Hal

    Damn. The first part of the statement raised my hopes that they had been found ok, just stuck somewhere. What a tragedy for these sailors and their families. RIP.

  23. 23.

    D58826

    The President has woken up to news that 7 US sailors have died. He has chosen to tweet about witch hunts and poll numbers.

  25. 25.

    The Pale Scot

    @J R in WV:

    I saw a depiction of the cargo ship’s course before the collision, and it was very strange

    Ya, 20,000 T ships don’t do U-turns in the middle of busy coastal sea lanes, and the CO was on the bridge at the time.

  27. 27.

    Leem

    RIP to the sailors who perished in this tragedy. My nautical experience begs the question of how this happened, if it is indeed accidental. If the naval vessel was to the port (left) side of the cargo ship, as the collision photos indicate, the Fitzgerald should have altered course. The cargo ship would appear to have right of way as the stand on vessel. These destroyers have incredible radar and tracking capacity.

  28. 28.

    Mike in NC

    We had a couple of “man overboard” scares on ships I served on. Fortunately they were just scares. Nothing worse than being lost at sea.

  29. 29.

    Lyrebird

    Good thoughts to their families.

    And love that hymn – one of my grands grew up in the Maritimes, sang that often. Lots of fishing boats…

  30. 30.

    Ruckus

    @Mike in NC:
    We had to hunt for a sailor that got blown off the flight deck of the carrier USS America in the med, we were on plane guard duty – on a DDG. He was of course instructed about what to do, and what not to do on the flight deck. He was told never to walk behind the jets on deck. He chose wrong and paid for it. The only thing found was his life jacket. If I remember correctly he was 19.

  31. 31.

    way2blue

    Any insight into why these two ships collided? (With ‘Rules of the Road’ and radar and bridge watches — ships don’t typically run into each other… ) N.B., descriptions of the damage to the Navy vessel’s hull suggest a fairly ‘high speed’ collision (for ships).

  32. 32.

    BrianM

    Perrow’s Normal Accidents has a longish section on naval collisions, many of which have bizarre tracks where the ships – while trying to evade each other – nevertheless turn right at each other. I forget the explanation, and I don’t know if it applies here.

  33. 33.

    dnfree

    My father served in World War II on the Orestes, which was bombed by the Japanese in the Pacific. Like so many of that generation, he never spoke of his service when we were growing up, but in the 1980s his crew started having reunions, along with other PT-boat groups. When we knew the end was nearing, we asked him if there were any particular Bible readings or hymns he would like. This hymn is the only one he requested. So I am sorry for the sailors who died, but also glad to have a little memory of my dad on Father’s Day.

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    All seven sailors perished, and their names and hometowns have been released: per the NY Times: Sleeping Sailors on U.S.S. Fitzgerald Awoke to a Calamity at Sea

    The Navy released the names on Sunday night of the seven sailors who were killed. The victims were all located in flooded berths, the Navy said.

    They were identified as Dakota Kyle Rigsby, 19, of Palmyra, Va.; Shingo Alexander Douglass, 25, of San Diego; Ngoc T. Truong Huynh, 25, of Oakville, Conn.; Noe Hernandez, 26, of Weslaco, Tex.; Carlos Victor Ganzon Sibayan, 23, of Chula Vista, Calif.; Xavier Alec Martin, 24, of Halethorpe, Md.; and Gary Leo Rehm Jr., 37, of Elyria, Ohio.

    …. The mother of a sailor who survived the collision, Mia Sykes, said her son kept diving to try to save his shipmates until the flooded berth began running out of air pockets, while others — believing the ship was under attack — hurried to man the guns.

    Ms. Sykes, of Raleigh, N.C., told The Associated Press that her son, Brayden Harden, 19, was knocked out of his bunk by the impact. She said Mr. Harden told her that four men in his berth, including those sleeping on bunks above and below him, died, while three died in the berth above his.

    The investigators’ attention will be focused in particular on the Fitzgerald’s commander, Bryce Benson, who was in his stateroom on the destroyer’s starboard side when the Crystal’s bow struck right at that point. He was injured and airlifted by a Japanese Coast Guard helicopter to Yokosuka, along with two other crew members, the Navy said.

    “His cabin was destroyed. He’s lucky to be alive,” Admiral Aucoin said of Commander Benson, 40.

    Before retiring for the night, Commander Benson would have signed routine “night orders,” updating the standing orders he had issued to the entire crew. They would almost certainly have dictated those on watch to wake him if another ship was expected to pass close to the Fitzgerald in the busy shipping lane south of Tokyo.

    The fact that he was in his cabin when the collision occurred suggested that there was very little warning before the accident, Navy veterans said.

    116 sailors were in sleeping cabins that were flooded after the collision. One retired Admiral and author suggests the captain will likely be relieved of duty, no matter what the outcome of the investigation.

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