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Groton Daily Independent
Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017 ~ Vol. 25 - No. 053 ~ 20 of 45
Fargo campus. The hay will be distributed through a lottery drawing next month.
North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring says about 30 semitrailer loads of hay have been
donated. His agency is looking for help hauling it to the Fargo site.
There is heavy interest in the hay lottery. The department has received more than 800 applications from
ranchers in the three states.
US says some remains of sailors found on USS John McCain By ANNABELLE LIANG, Associated Press
SINGAPORE (AP) — The commander of the U.S. Paci c Fleet said some remains of Navy sailors were found in a compartment of the USS John McCain on Tuesday, a day after the warship’s collision with an oil tanker in Southeast Asian waters left 10 sailors missing.
Adm. Scott Swift also said at a news conference in Singapore that Malaysian of cials had found one body, which they were in the process of identifying.
The focus of the search for the missing sailors shifted Tuesday to the damaged destroyer’s ooded com- partments. The collision on Monday tore a gaping hole in the McCain’s left rear hull and ooded adjacent compartments including crew berths and machinery and communication rooms. Five sailors were injured.
“The divers were able to locate some remains in those sealed compartments during their search today,” Swift said.
“We will continue the search and rescue operations until the probability of discovering sailors is ex- hausted,” he said.
It was the second major collision in two months involving the Paci c-based 7th Fleet and the Navy has ordered a broad investigation into its performance and readiness. Seven sailors died in June when the USS Fitzgerald and a container ship collided in waters off Japan. There were two lesser-known incidents in the rst half of the year. In January, the USS Antietam guided missile cruiser ran aground near Yokosuka base, the home port of the 7th Fleet, and in May another cruiser, the USS Lake Champlain from the Navy’s 3rd Fleet, had a minor collision with a South Korean shing boat.
“While each of these four incidents is unique, they cannot be viewed in isolation,” Swift said.
He said the Navy would conduct an investigation “to nd out if there is a common cause ... and if so, how do we solve that.”
Earlier Tuesday, the 7th Fleet said the sea search by aircraft and ships from the U.S., Singapore and Malaysian navies would continue east of Singapore where the McCain and the tanker collided at daybreak Monday, but the deployment of divers to search inside the warship, now docked at Singapore’s naval base, was a blow to families still hoping for a miracle.
Megan Partlow of Ohio, who said her ance was on board the McCain, told The Associated Press in a Facebook message that they last communicated on Sunday and she was losing hope of seeing him again. “My last text to him was ‘be safe,’ which is the same way we end every conversation. I’m just ready for answers,” she said. The identities of the missing have not been disclosed but Partlow said her ance’s
parents were in touch with the Navy’s family assistance center.
Navy Adm. John Richardson, the chief of naval operations, on Monday ordered a pause in 7th Fleet
operations for the next few days to allow commanders to get together with leaders, sailors and command of cials and identify any immediate steps that need to be taken to ensure safety.
A broader U.S. Navy review will look at the 7th Fleet’s performance, including personnel, navigation capabilities, maintenance, equipment, surface warfare training, munitions, certi cations and how sailors move through their careers. Richardson said the review will be conducted with the help of the Navy’s of ce of the inspector general, the safety center and private companies that make equipment used by sailors.
The McCain had been heading to Singapore on a routine port visit after conducting a sensitive freedom- of-navigation operation last week by sailing near one of China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea. China, Washington’s main rival for in uence in the Asia-Paci c, seized on the McCain collision to accuse the Navy of endangering maritime navigation in the region. This year’s string of accidents shows the U.S.