Navy Relieves Commander of Expeditionary Ship Nearly 2 Months After Grounding in Africa

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Navy Relieves Commander of Expeditionary Ship Nearly 2 Months After Grounding in *******

The

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has relieved the commanding officer of the expeditionary mobile base ship USS Hershel “Woody” Williams two months after the vessel briefly ran aground outside of the ******** country of Gabon, a Navy statement announced Monday.

Capt. Lenard Mitchell, the commander of the Williams’ “Gold” crew, was relieved by Vice Adm. Thomas Ishee, the commander of U.S. 6th Fleet, “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command.”

The Navy’s statement added that “the relief occurred as a result of an investigation into the soft grounding” of the Williams near the port of Libreville, Gabon, on May 9 and, “while the investigation is still open, sufficient findings of fact emerged during the investigation to warrant the relief of the commanding officer.”

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Typically, the Navy is quick to remove a ship’s commander after a grounding — usually moving within days or, at most, a week or two.

When the cruiser USS Port Royal ran aground on a shoal off the coast of Honolulu in 2009,

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— until the ship was free — to relieve its commander.

When the USS Howard suffered a soft grounding near the Indonesian island of Bali on Aug. 10, 2023, the Navy

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.

In 2014, the Navy took about two weeks to ***** the commander of a frigate — the USS Taylor — that ran aground in the ****** Sea.

When Military.com asked Navy officials in the weeks after the Williams’ grounding why Mitchell had not been relieved, no one was able to offer an explanation.

The Navy’s statement also did not explain why this relief took almost two months.

The Navy said that Mitchell will be temporarily assigned to Commander, Naval Surface Forces Atlantic, while Capt. Michael Concannon will assume the duties of interim commanding officer aboard the Williams.

The Williams is currently deployed to the waters off ******* and “there is no impact to the command’s mission or schedule due to the relief,” the statement noted.

Mitchell is now the ninth commander to be fired for a “loss of the trust and confidence”

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. A total of 13 commanders have now been relieved this year, though not all for losses of confidence. Navy officials have said that commanders can also be relieved for medical reasons or ask to be relieved themselves.

Navy officials have previously said the sea service relieved 15 commanding officers in 2023 over a loss in confidence.

There are currently around 1,600 commanding officers in the active-duty Navy across all communities.

Since the start of 2024, the Navy has fired three of its commanders over ****** driving incidents. Two were submarine skippers, and one was a SEAL commodore.

In January, the Navy fired Capt. Geoffry Patterson — the commander of the USS Georgia’s blue crew — after he was arrested early on Jan. 9 for driving under the influence and improper lane change.

Similarly, Capt. Richard Zaszewski,

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,

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between 0.15% and 0.2% — though that incident

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.

Finally, Capt. Kurt Balagna, who was the

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by Washington state police for driving with a blood alcohol content of around 0.24%.

Two of the nine fired Navy commanders were chaplains assigned to the

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:

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who had served in that position since 2022, and Cmdr. Cristiano DeSousa,

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.

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