"I, and I Alone"

For almost a month every Academy man in the fleet had squirmed with embarrassment while square-jawed Captain W. D. Brown stubbornly maintained that he was just about the last man in the world to blame for running the battleship Missouri aground in Chesapeake Bay. As a naval court of inquiry dug into the humiliating mishap of the Mighty Mo, Captain Brown insisted that "I was utterly alone as far as any assistance from my team was concerned" and caught up in an "unfortunate chain of circumstances."

The circumstances were unfortunate, all right. Until the last minute, neither the navigator nor the operations officer had sounded a warning as the Mo steamed on toward the sand flats at 15 knots, 10 to 15 degrees off course, past plain landmarks ashore. No one had asked the Fathometer operator for a sounding; the radar plotter had never sent his shoalwater reports to the bridge. When the executive officer tried to send a message from the main navigation bridge four decks below, the enlisted "talker" was unable to find anyone to listen.

But last week, with the salty comments from unfriendly quarterdecks rumbling in his ears, Captain Brown swung back onto the only course every Navy skipper is expected to follow. "In my opinion," Brown said, "I, and I alone, bear sole responsibility for the grounding of the Missouri. As captain of the ship it was my duty to keep her safe and secure. I didn't do it ... Despite all the numerous shortcomings of others ... I could have, and should have, kept the ship in deep water."

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