nuclear-news

Navy Rejects Captain’s Plea to Evacuate Virus-Ravaged Carrier, Bloomberg, By Roxana Tiron ,Travis J Tritten, and Glen Carey

• Admiral says sailors will be rotated off in smaller numbers

• A U.S. Navy captain’s dramatic plea to evacuate most sailors from an aircraft carrier struck by the coronavirus was tamped down by an admiral who called for a more gradual rotation of crew members off the ship that’s sidelined in Guam.

  Citing an “ongoing and accelerating” danger on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt, Captain Brett Crozier sent his Navy superiors a memo pleading, “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die.” He called for removing all but a skeleton crew off the carrier, where sailors are in close quarters, so that they can be isolated and tested……

  The Roosevelt, meant to be patrolling the Pacific and South China Sea, is sitting dockside in Guam indefinitely as the number of soldiers infected by the novel coronavirus rises daily. Infections started cropping up after an early March port call in Vietnam, which Pentagon leaders say had about 16 known virus cases at the time …… https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/carrier-s-captain-pleads-for-coronavirus-action-to-save-sailors?fbclid=IwAR2jMtSh2oHrD8_xM384jGcK52DX3TihqP3brMrzaUrSNBgY17GYBVxcbEg