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Sailor accused of torching USS Bonhomme Richard will go to court-martial, Navy decides

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The Navy announced Friday that it is taking to court-martial a junior sailor accused of setting the fire that destroyed the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard in 2020.

“After careful review of the preliminary hearing report, (U.S. 3rd Fleet commander) Vice Adm. Steve Koehler … referred charges against Seaman Recruit Ryan Sawyer Mays to a general court-martial,” the San Diego-based 3rd Fleet said in a statement.

Mays is charged with aggravated arson and willful hazarding of a vessel in connection to the July 12, 2020, fire, which burned for days, led the Navy to scrap the $1.2 billion flattop and exposed systemic ship firefighting failures at all levels.

But Mays’ civilian defense attorney, Gary Barthel, questioned whether the Navy is seeking justice or simply making his client a scapegoat for the high-profile disaster, which occurred while the amphib was undergoing maintenance in San Diego.

According to Barthel, Capt. Angela Tang, the legal officer who presided over December’s preliminary hearing and heard evidence in the case, recommended to Koehler that the case not go to court-martial.

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“(Tang) didn’t believe the government could prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Barthel said.

“You hand-picked this officer, she made a recommendation to you, and you just totally disregarded it,” he added. “I have to conclude the Navy is not interested in seeking justice for this case and is making Mays a scapegoat.”

Third Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Sean Robertson said Koehler made his decision after considering the entirety of the preliminary hearing report but declined to discuss specifics since the case is ongoing.

Tang could not be reached for comment.

Barthel declined to provide records showing Tang’s decision, and 3rd Fleet has declined to provide Tang’s report following the preliminary hearing, known as an Article 32, because such documents remain part of an ongoing case.

Barthel said his client “continues to maintain his innocence.”

Tang’s legal opinion on the strength of the Navy’s case was only a recommendation, and Koehler is completely within his rights to still refer the case to court-martial, according to Lawrence Brennan, a retired Navy captain, attorney and law professor at Fordham University.

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“It’s certainly not unheard of,” Brennan said of Koehler’s decision to override Tang’s recommendation. “It’s a recommendation from a junior to a flag officer. (The flag officer) has absolute discretion.”

While Mays is now charged with starting the fire, a subsequent Navy investigation revealed failures at all levels to extinguish the inferno, which burned for nearly five days and led the sea service to decommission the once-mighty warship.

That investigation, released last fall, recommended disciplinary action against dozens of personnel, including multiple admirals.

The Navy has yet to make any of those disciplinary actions public.

A date has not yet been set for Mays’ arraignment.

Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at [email protected].

Navy creates separate PRT plank standards for men, women

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The Navy has released new plank standards for the physical readiness test for men and women, and is also reducing the max out standards for both groups after evaluating records from last year’s assessment.

Whereas the plank standards the Navy originally released in 2020 were gender neutral for all age groups, the new standards are slightly different for men and women, according to the Navy. The shift stems from analysis done on 26,000 forearm plank records from the 2021 PRT, which found there was a “minor gender performance differential,” the Navy said in a new naval administrative message.

As a result, there is now a 10 second difference between the maximum scores for men and women in the plank event.

That means 17 to 19 year old male sailors will max out holding the plank for 3:24 minutes to receive an outstanding score, while 17 to 19 year old female sailors will max out at 3:14 minutes. The requirements to reach the maximum score of 100 declines by four seconds through each age group.

These standards are not as strict as those released in 2020.

Both men and women between the ages of 17 and 19 had to hold the forearm plank for 3:40 minutes to receive the maximum score under that guidance. The max out time was reduced five seconds for each subsequent age bracket.

Sailors are permitted to shake from involuntary muscle spasms while holding the forearm plank if they maintain their form. The event will stop for several reasons, such as the sailor lowering his or her head to hands, failing to maintain a 90-degree angle at the elbows, or receiving more than two corrections on form.

The Navy is poised to kick off a single PRT cycle in 2022, a departure from the standard two cycles conducted annually. The single cycle will run from April 1 to Sept. 30, and will mark the first time that the forearm planks are scored.

Although forearm planks were included in the 2021 PRT, that was for recording purposes only and they were not factored into the overall score. Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. John Nowell Jr. announced that the scores for the 2021 PRT would instead be used to guarantee the scoring tables were correct.

“We’re not going to count that one against you this first cycle because we want to make sure we get it right,” Nowell said during a Facebook Live townhall event in June 2021.

The Navy, which also completed a single PRT cycle in 2021, is eyeing a single PRT cycle in 2023 as well, Nowell said this month.

“It may be as we look at the scores that come out of ‘22, we satisfy ourselves that we can maintain the kind of physical fitness, the health, the wellness that we’re looking for to make you resilient with once a year,” Nowell said Feb. 15 during a Facebook Live townhall event.

“Maybe we do some other things there,” Nowell said. “But more than anything what I’ll ask you to do though is, please focus on your physical fitness.”

Consequences of misunderstandings with Russian ships grow as invasion looms, CNO says

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SAN DIEGO — As the Navy aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman and its strike group steams in the Mediterranean Sea — close to a bevy of Russian ships that have arrived there ahead of a potential invasion of Ukraine — the service’s top officer says the stakes of any encounter between the two navies have grown significantly.

President Biden said Friday that he believes a Russian invasion of Ukraine is now imminent, and that Moscow plans to attack the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

This sobering reality means that any misunderstanding between NATO and Russian ships in the region carry that much more consequence, Adm. Mike Gilday, the chief of naval operations, told reporters Friday.

“Given this current situation, the chance for miscalculation is greater,” Gilday said.

But Gilday also noted that “we operate in and around the Russians and the Chinese all the time, so this is nothing new.”

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He told reporters Wednesday that the Navy now has more than 20 ships deployed to the theater.

Training to a high standard will help ensure that ship commanding officers make the right moves and “communicate very clearly that we’re not cowboys out there.”

Asked about Biden’s comments, Gilday said Truman and the other ships in the region fall under U.S. European Command, and that Truman will remain on station “for the foreseeable future,” as far as he knew.

“We need to be forward to be relevant,” he said. “Truman’s in the right place.”

Gilday was here for a panel at WEST 2022, a Navy and defense industry conference.

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Col. Randy Stoeckmann, 934th Mission Support Group commander, left, and Col. Ken Rose, 934th Maintenance Group commander, right, salute deploying 934th Airlift Wing members at Minneapolis-St. Paul Air Reserve Station on Feb. 16, 2022. Airmen from the wing are deploying in support of a broader effort to demonstrate our commitment to our NATO allies. (Chris Farley/Air Force)

In addition to nearly 200,000 Russian troops now massed around Ukraine, Moscow has poured warships, submarines and other naval assets into the Mediterranean and Black seas in recent weeks.

“We haven’t seen a movement like this in recent history” in the Black Sea, retired Adm. James Foggo, who commanded U.S. and NATO naval forces in Europe before retiring in 2020, told POLITICO earlier this month.

Truman has in recent weeks exercised with the French carrier Charles De Gaulle, the Italian carrier Cavour and their assorted strike groups.

The Navy also last week confirmed the deployment of four guided-missile destroyers to the region, although officials say the move is not in response to the Russian buildup.

Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at [email protected].

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