The skipper of the frigate John L. Hall was fired Tuesday morning for hitting a pier roughly one month after taking command.[Emphasis mine] As expected, the CO bio page on the ship's webpage is down, but here's the Google cached version, which show that Pfaeffle served on USS Guitarro (SSN 665) during the mid to late 80s. His picture is here, if that jogs any memories:
Vice Adm. Harry Harris, 6th Fleet commander, relieved Cmdr. Herman Pfaeffle for loss of confidence in his ability to command, 6th Fleet spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Mark Walton told Navy Times.
There was no mast, and no injuries resulted from the April 16 incident, which occurred in Batumi, Georgia.
The incident happened during a port call held amid joint drills conducted with Ukrainian naval pilots and the Georgian coast guard in the Black Sea. Walton said the ship sustained some damage, but was able to continue with its mission...
...Pfaeffle is a mustang from the submarine service who enlisted in 1983, according to his official bio. He entered the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps through the Navy’s Broadened Opportunity for Officer Selection and Training Program and received his commission in 1993.
I guess I shouldn't be amazed that Big Navy would fire a CO who hit the pier after only one month in command, and maybe the CO overrode the crew's recommendations and ordered them to do something stupid that caused the collision. If that's not the case, however, I'm wondering if the deskbound senior officers who decide this kind of thing really expect that a new CO can fix all the problems on a ship after only a month in command -- especially in the middle of a deployment. If it turns out that the crew had a share of responsibility for the incident, will the shore-based squadron who signed off on their deployment preparations suffer any repercussions?
OK, you can stop laughing now. As has been shown repeatedly in the past, Big Navy knows that it's much easier just to blame the CO and crew than to actually look into any problems the shore-based infrastructure might have with training and certifying ships during pre-deployment cycles. That would be too hard, and would interfere with their busy schedule of going to clambakes and conferences. Anyway, they're not ever going to sea again, so why should they worry if they end up with a bunch of timid COs who spend all their time covering their butts instead of training their ships to actually fight a war?
