10 Who Served at Sea: The Sailors Who Went Missing in the Navy Collision

31 Aug 2017 News 1225

They were young men, petty officers all, whose lives were lived at sea and then almost certainly lost there.

John Henry Hoagland III grew up in Killeen, Tex., and he spoke about serving his country when he was just 5 and still confronted with kindergarten. His family said he had joined the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps in high school, and then visited recruiters for different branches of the military before deciding on the Navy, where his uncle and a grandfather had also served.

Aboard big ships plowing waters far from land, he found serenity and exhilaration. Cynthia Kimball, his mother, shared one of her son’s Facebook posts, written in June, that captured his feelings.

“I’ve been to a few gorgeous places since I’ve made it out to the Fleet,” he wrote. “But man,” he added, “I still can’t get over just looking out at the ocean, or staring up at all of the stars at night. I think those two things are at the top of my list of favorite reasons for going Navy over any other branch.”

Ms. Kimball last spoke with her son, 20, an electronics technician, third class, last Friday afternoon. He let her know “that they were going to dock soon and he would call me when they did,” she said. “He was headed to bed. Told me good night and he loved me.”

The destroyer John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker in the waters near Singapore on Monday. Ten sailors, including Petty Officer Hoagland, are presumed to have died despite the slim odds survivors could be found, said two Navy officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential aspects of the investigation. They represented a scattered group of men with early and pointed desires to do service on the world’s oceans. They then became victims in the latest of a spate of accidents involving Navy vessels.

After 80 hours of looking across 2,100 square miles of water, the Navy suspended search and rescue efforts on Thursday. Attempts to find the bodies inside the ship continued, but were complicated by the heavy damage to the vessel. At least 20 divers from the Navy and the Marine Corps have been working underwater with hydraulic cutters to try to pierce the McCain’s crushed and flooded berthing compartments.

The crash occurred just two months after the deadly collision of another ship from the Navy’s Seventh Fleet, the destroyer Fitzgerald, which hit a freighter off the coast of Japan. Seven people died aboard the American ship. Two other Navy accidents occurred in Asia this year.

In the aftermath, the commander of the Seventh Fleet, the Navy’s largest overseas, was removed on Wednesday. On Thursday, Adm. Bill Moran, the Navy’s second-ranking officer, issued detailed instructions to the four-star admiral assigned to conduct a 60-day review into possible systemic problems plaguing Navy ships worldwide, especially the Seventh Fleet based in Japan.

The instructions direct Adm. Phil Davidson, the head of the Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., to examine issues including pace of operations, readiness, and whether the fleet was properly training officers and crews.

The cause of the latest crash remains under investigation. A pair of House Armed Services subcommittees on Wednesday said they would hold a joint hearing on Sept. 7 about readiness issues associated with the two destroyer collisions. Representative Rob Wittman, a Virginia Republican who heads the sea power subcommittee, is expected to meet on Monday in Japan with the new commander of the Seventh Fleet, Vice Adm. Phillip G. Sawyer. The Senate Armed Services Committee is also expected to hold hearings examining the accidents in September.

A statement from the White House on Tuesday expressed “great sadness” and said, “As the Navy begins the process of recovering our fallen sailors, our thoughts and prayers go out to their families and friends.”

The sailors came from eight states and ranged in age from 20 to 39. Eight were in their 20s.

Inside the flooded ship, divers found the remains of Kenneth Aaron Smith, 22, an electronics technician, third class, from Cherry Hill, N.J. After growing up in Michigan, he moved to Virginia as a teenager, according to a report in The Detroit Free Press, and followed his grandfather and father into the Navy.

Niana Jasso knew Petty Officer Smith in high school and talked to him frequently over Skype while he was serving aboard the McCain. “We’d talk about the latest video games he was playing,” Ms. Jasso said. “After the military he wanted to be a YouTube star and be a game developer.”

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One American sailor, Kenneth Aaron Smith, 22, from New Jersey, center top, was confirmed dead on Thursday. Nine others from the destroyer John S. McCain were listed as missing: Jacob Daniel Drake, 21, from Ohio, top left; and Charles Nathan Findley, 31, from Missouri, top right. Second row from left: Logan Stephen Palmer, 23, from Illinois; John Henry Hoagland III, 20, from Texas; and Timothy Thomas Eckels Jr., 23, from Maryland. Third row from left: Kevin Sayer Bushell, 26, from Maryland; Dustin Louis Doyon, 26, from Connecticut; and Abraham Lopez, 39, from Texas. The photograph of the ninth missing sailor, Corey George Ingram, 28, was not released. CreditU.S. Navy 

He would joke to her that no one showered aboard the ship, so everyone smelled. Sometimes he sent Ms. Jasso videos from the deck. “Just him just walking around,” she said. “He’d be looking out at the sea and the stars.”

She last spoke to him last week. He had been badgering her to watch his favorite show, “Rick and Morty,” and she wanted to tell him that she finally had.

The allure of travel brought Jacob Daniel Drake, 21, to the Navy. An electronics technician, second class, from Cable, Ohio, he joined the Navy after high school.

He loved gadgets and technology, according to Brandie Roberts, a cousin. “He was ridiculously smart,” Ms. Roberts said in an interview over Facebook messenger, adding that he was “awkward, but it made him even more fun to be around” and that “he could make anyone laugh.”

Ms. Roberts said she had last spoken with Petty Officer Drake a little over a week ago. He inquired about her daughter, she said, who has been having health problems. She tried to talk with him about once a month, but she said he had never mentioned the recent crash involving the Fitzgerald.

“I think maybe he didn’t bring it up because I’m sure it bothered him and he didn’t want us to worry even more,” she said.

She said her cousin had made lots of friends in the Navy and enjoyed his experience there, but “was ready for his deployment to end because he was ready to be closer to home.”

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Crew members from the Singapore Navy, left, prepared for search and recovery operations on Thursday.CreditWallace Woon/European Pressphoto Agency 

Pride was a big motivation for Charles Nathan Findley, 31, an electronics technician, first class, from tiny Amazonia, Mo. Fond of rebuilding cars, he, too, wanted to travel and make himself and his family proud, his sister, Amy Winters, told Fox 4, a television station in Kansas City, Mo.

Logan Stephen Palmer, 23, an interior communications electrician, third class, from Decatur, Ill., was known for his ingenuity. Caleb Stamper, who attended boot camp with him, said in an interview over Facebook messenger that he was “very outgoing” and “very courageous,” and was “always stepping up and leading with new ideas on how we could do things.”

He added: “He wanted to serve his country before he took what it had to offer. He thought that was the right thing to do.”

One of the things that stood out about Corey George Ingram was his winning personality. Petty Officer Ingram, 28, was an information systems technician, second class, from Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

“He was very outgoing, always willing to lend a hand,” a fellow sailor, Chris Eaton, told The Straits Times of Singapore. “If we were ever in the same city, we would meet up and go looking for a party. He could befriend anyone in the room — he just had one of those personalities.”

The other missing sailors are Dustin Louis Doyon, 26, an electronics technician, third class, from Suffield, Conn.; Abraham Lopez, 39, an interior communications electrician, first class, from El Paso; Kevin Sayer Bushell, 26, an electronics technician, second class, from Gaithersburg, Md; and Timothy Thomas Eckels Jr., 23, an information systems technician, second class, from Manchester, Md.

There was little question that the collision involving the Fitzgerald had gotten the attention of the McCain sailors. But it didn’t seem to worry them.

Ms. Kimball, Petty Officer Hoagland’s mother, said she had discussed that accident with her son.

“We talked about the other collision,” she said. “No, he was not worried it would happen to them.”

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