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But he grew concerned the ship\u2019s crew and federal firefighters were squandering a limited opportunity to contain the fire in the lower vehicle storage area, where it originated. The investigation into the fire noted the ship\u2019s crew was slow to call for help and did not take actions to prevent the fire from spreading to other areas of the ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Brown called ship commanding officer, Capt. Gregory Scott Thoroman, who said he and the crew had left the ship and were on the pier. The investigation into the fire noted the crew pulled out of the ship twice during the firefight that morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thoroman should have been coordinating with the base\u2019s Federal Fire Department and the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center, collectively forming the incident command team, according to a 2018 Navy instruction laying out fire prevention and fire response responsibilities for ships in maintenance. Bonhomme Richard had been undergoing maintenance at the pier at the naval base.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, Brown said, \u201cI could just tell in his responses that he was unsure on how to coordinate the resources that were at his disposal. It was clear to me there was friction that was developing\u201d between the Navy and civilian commands, with the federal firefighters having been pulled out of the ship multiple times and the Navy firefighters lacking the gear they needed to fully tackle the fire on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the Navy\u2019s organization falling apart, he called the Expeditionary Strike Group 3 commander, Rear Adm. Phil Sobeck, around 11 a.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPhil, you can tell me to eff off, because I\u2019m not in your chain of command, but you have to get down to that pier and provide leadership and guidance because they\u2019re all sitting at the end of the pier watching the ship burn,\u201d Brown said he told Sobeck. \u201cAnd he goes, \u2018Admiral, I\u2019m getting in the car, I\u2019m on my way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown took other actions during that time, including some outside his typical authorities as a type commander. He ordered destroyers Fitzgerald and Russell to leave the pier they shared with Bonhomme Richard, even if it meant damaging brows and cables, so no other ships would suffer fire damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the firefighting itself was still disorganized, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown directed his staff to contact U.S. 3rd Fleet around 12:30 p.m., but 3rd Fleet\u2019s position was, \u201cThe ship\u2019s in maintenance, it\u2019s not our problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown argues it was the fleet\u2019s responsibility: During weekly meetings with PACFLT leadership, 3rd Fleet routinely briefed on the manning, training and equipping status of all the ships in maintenance, with Brown on the call in a supporting role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A retired flag officer, who previously served in the San Diego region and understands the command and control structure there, also told Defense News 3rd Fleet should have been the organization to manage the failing efforts by the ship captain. The flag officer did not wish to speak on the record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
After the staff-level call failed, Brown set up a call with 3rd Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Scott Conn, for the two three-stars to hash it out directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI said, hey, Phil\u2019s down there, but we have to formally establish a new command structure. And he told me he wasn\u2019t going to do it because the ship was in maintenance and it\u2019s not his problem. And I said fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense News reached out to Conn to clarify his position that the Bonhomme Richard, as a ship in maintenance, was not under his command. Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, U.S. Navy Chief of Information, told Defense News that two policies \u2014 the OPNAVINST 3440.18 and the NAVSEA 8010 manual \u2014 \u201cwere not fully consistent, but they placed command and control responsibility on the administrative chain of command for a ship in this configuration. Third Fleet was the operational commander two echelons above the BHR.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vice Adm. Rich Brown said his staff reviewed these same two documents again in the weeks following the fire and again concluded that they were expected to play a supporting role, but that Pacific Fleet should have taken responsibility for the ship via its operational chain of command.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All the relevant leaders were already connected in a teleconference, so Brown went into the ad hoc command center in his office and told everyone Sobeck was in charge and made sure they all understood their supporting roles to assist Sobeck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He then called the then-Pacific Fleet commander, Adm. John Aquilino.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI told him what I had done, what I was seeing: the C2 degrading on the pier, there\u2019s no focus of effort, people are off doing their own things. And I told him that I had asked Scott to take command and he said no. And I said … \u2018Phil now works for me, and I\u2019ve got it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAbsolutely, Rich, you got it, put the fire out,\u201d the admiral replied, according to Brown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown didn\u2019t dispute the Navy\u2019s accounting of the rest of the five days of firefighting as laid out in the investigation, but said the investigation\u2019s accounting of how the command and control fell apart during a crisis is incomplete and the investigation itself was \u201cfatally defective\u201d without interviewing him or including a full picture of what will be a key lesson learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Flawed chain of command structures<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
The retired three-star said one of the reasons he wanted to share his perspective about the fire <\/b>is because the same command and control flaw played a role in the 2017 collisions of destroyers Fitzgerald and McCain and the 2020 fire on Bonhomme Richard. Brown led the McCain investigation and participated in the Fitzgerald investigation, and he said one of the recommendations he made at the time was to reinstate a Cold War-era command structure that had two chains of command: one for ships in maintenance and the basic phase, led by a one-star admiral focused on ensuring they built up their readiness, and one for ships in advanced training and deployments, led by a one-star focused on employing their warfighting capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown said this setup could have prevented the Fitzgerald and McCain tragedies, and <\/b>that he had <\/b>urged the Navy to revamp the command and control setup in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was told, \u2018It\u2019s not going to happen; there\u2019s one chain of command.\u2019 That\u2019s what they all kept saying to me, there\u2019s one chain of command, and that\u2019s the operational chain of command, which the [type commanders] are not in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown said that, with the operational chain of command in charge of the ships in maintenance, his job as the type commander was to ensure ships were up to date on their certifications \u2014 which Bonhomme Richard was. Still, he said the operational chain of command had made clear in the past the ship was always their ship, regardless of what phase of maintenance, training or operations it was in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Had the Navy made Brown\u2019s recommended change in 2017, Bonhomme Richard would have been clearly under Brown\u2019s control in 2020 and he could have taken more aggressive measures when the fire broke out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown said the Navy must learn from this disaster and make the proper reforms to prevent another ship from being destroyed \u2014 and the right lessons can\u2019t be learned or the right reforms made if the Navy is working off an incomplete and inaccurate investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Other Navy leaders agreed command and control was an issue the day of the fire, but disagreed that 3rd Fleet should have taken a bigger role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conn was appointed to lead the investigation \u2014 the Navy was clear at the time that he was given the assignment not in his capacity as 3rd Fleet commander but as an individual three-star admiral in the San Diego area with the experience to lead a command investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Conn told Defense News in a media roundtable in October, when the fire investigation was released, that Navy policy was for ships in maintenance to go through the administrative chain of command, through the type commander. He added that \u201cone of our recommendations going forward is to review where should the operational chain be aligned as part of the oversight in a lengthy availability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rear Adm. Paul Spedero, who led the major fires review that accompanied the Bonhomme Richard fire investigation, added during the roundtable that there had been confusion and inconsistency in the past between administrative control and operational control of ships in maintenance. He said that issue had been largely solved as the Navy made reforms following the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, he agreed, the Bonhomme Richard fire response \u201ccertainly had issues. \u2026 There was a lack of clarity in [administrative control] and [operational control] responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the Navy spokesman, added in his statement that \u201cthere were multiple contributing factors that caused confusion on the [command and control]. First, there was a failure to adequately train for a fire in an industrial environment, and more specifically, exercise the various supporting and supported command relationships. Second, some of the policies in place were in conflict or unnecessarily redundant with one another. Finally, practices and procedures had developed over time that were accepted and followed but were inconsistent with written policies, which allowed the [command and control] in the circumstances of the industrial environment to become varied.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Accountability actions<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Brown said, despite the major role he played while the ship was on fire, he was never interviewed. Conn emailed him about a potential interview and to ask five specific questions related to the roles and functions of the type commander. Brown answered the questions, but said Conn never followed up to arrange a formal interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown said he had no indication he would be named as contributing to the loss of the ship until the report came out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI am convinced that there was undue command influence on that investigation at the end, because when you look at the findings of facts, in the findings of facts behind my name, they just don\u2019t make any sense. And why won\u2019t they talk to me?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown led the investigation into the COVID-19 outbreak on aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, in addition to the McCain investigation. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to consider anybody for any type of disciplinary action, you need to, at the very least, interview them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rear Adm. Charlie Brown, the spokesman, said retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown\u2019s input via email was included in the investigation and \u201cit is not uncommon for an investigation to use written questions to gather information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Overall, he added, \u201cthe investigation was thorough, is being reviewed by all echelons of the chain of command, and has been extremely valuable in helping to identify corrections across the fleet to help get at the challenges of shipboard fires.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Sam Paparo serves as the consolidated disposition authority for this incident and sent Brown a short letter in December stating that \u201cI have determined your case warrants no action.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown said he thought the issue was resolved until his lawyer in early June warned him Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro would be sending a letter of censure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI just don\u2019t know what facts changed in the last six months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lauren Hanzel, a former Navy judge advocate general who currently works in private practice as a military defense attorney, told Defense News that Conn and his team not interviewing Brown in the first place was unusual, particularly when it started to look like Brown was turning into a subject of the investigation and might be named as accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sending a censure after the CDA cleared Brown, she said, is even more unusual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The process Brown described \u201cis about as unique as us losing a capital ship. It\u2019s unconventional, and I\u2019m a little bit disappointed because if you look at due process and the appearance of fairness,\u201d the Navy will come out looking bad in this case, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hanzel noted censures are often a tool to block future promotions for someone in the military who can\u2019t be successfully prosecuted for wrongdoing, but she said Brown\u2019s retirement in 2020 makes the benefit of censure less clear and appear political.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brown told Defense News the Navy postponed sending him the censure letter in early June as he recovered from a medical procedure but that he expects to receive it in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Asked what he hoped would happen by talking to the media, Brown said the Navy has a pattern of punishing three-stars for political expediency without examining root causes and making reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though he planned to let it go before, \u201cnow I don\u2019t think I can, because I think the Navy is destined just to make the same mistakes again and again, especially the surface navy, because we don\u2019t have the [command and control] right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Retired Vice Adm. Rich Brown was named accountable for the loss of the amphibious ship Bonhomme Richard but was ultimately cleared of wrongdoing in December. Six months later, he’s facing censure from the Navy secretary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":33163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-post-featured-layout","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":88,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[29,116,15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3379],"class_list":["post-135806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-left-column","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"NYLXE4TD65C63OUUE4OUESZA24","arc_canonical_url":"\/naval\/2022\/07\/05\/new-details-emerge-about-the-2020-bonhomme-richard-fire-ahead-of-censure-of-three-star\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"featured-layout","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n