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| Captain Brett Crozier will reportedly be relieved of his command of the coronavirus-stricken nuclear aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt after his plea for help from Navy leaders went public. |
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US Navy to relieve commander of coronavirus-stricken USS Roosevelt after his plea for help for his sailors went public
Daily Mail
Thu April 2, 2020
The US Navy is expected to relieve the captain of the coronavirus-stricken USS Roosevelt days after his plea for help for his sailors went public.
US officials told Reuters on Thursday that Captain Brett Crozier will be relieved of his command of the nuclear aircraft carrier, four days after he penned a scathing letter to Navy leaders calling for stronger action to address the COVID-19 outbreak he said was unnecessarily threatening his sailors lives.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Crozier was being relieved not because he wrote the letter and sent it up through the chain of command but because the Navy believes he leaked it to the media.
One of the officials said a formal announcement could be made as early as Thursday.
The news comes as at least 93 members of the USS Roosevelt's 5,000-person crew have tested positive for COVID-19 and results are pending for hundreds of others.
The Navy is in the process of evacuating 2,700 sailors from the ship which is currently docked in Guam.
The USS Roosevelt was in the middle of a deployment to the Philippine and South China Seas when the Navy ordered it to cease sail on March 26 after at least 25 crew members tested positive.
In his four-page letter to Navy leaders, Crozier warned that the outbreak was 'ongoing and accelerating' and called for the immediate evacuation and isolation of 90 percent of the USS Roosevelt crew.
'We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors,' the captain wrote.
'This is a necessary risk.'
Crozier's extraordinary plea was made public on Tuesday - putting the Pentagon on the defensive about whether it was doing enough to keep the USS Roosevelt's crew safe as lawmakers and families of military members express concerns that other ships could be vulnerable to outbreaks.
Acting US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly had previously said Crozier would 'absolutely not' face retaliation for writing the letter - but indicated that he would be punished if officials found that he was the one who leaked it.
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