This was right before Christmas 1982 (November 29th, I think) around noon and we were
playing war games in the waters to the East of Subic Bay. The USS Leftwich (DD-984)
was a brand new destroyer at the time (well new to the west coast anyway) and most
surface pukes thought they were invincible and undetectable. Rules of engagement for
the war games were any surface ship shot with a verifiable firing solution (all of
the ships involved had monitors) were to cruise around in an operating box at LESS
THAN 6 KNOTS for 6 hours and then could rejoin. We had already shot at least one
other destroyer (steam type) and I think a cruiser. We had a sharp sonar operator
that had just come from sonar "C" school and knew what to look for with respect to
Spurance Class Destroyers and he found the Leftwich. We fired the water slug along
with a green smoke/flare combo (think that was how we indicated a verifiable firing
solution).
CDR Richard E Fast had the CON and was bringing us to PD (I'd have followed that man to hell just to see him kick butt on o'satan). My roommate stated that as the scope broke the water's surface the skipper literally ducked from the scope (he saw a great big 'V' and lots of gray -0 that's how close they were already).
Well he grabbed the 1MC screamed, "Brace yourselves boys", and hit the collision alarm and we were hit. The sonar dome on the Leftwich was the first thing to hit (there is an 18000# single piece molded condom, aka sonar dome, laying on the bottom of the Philippine Sea), followed by the main body of the ship, the stbd shaft and the stbd propeller. The stbd prop is what for the most part sheared off the stbd fairwater plane. The prop also hit the top of the sail and that didn't give way nearly as easily as the sailplane and so two blades of the Leftwich's stbd prop are also on the bottom. A helicopter came over and picked up our observer and dropped the cover over our sail. We cruised into Subic about midnight and the Leftwich pulled in about 0300 on a stuck port shaft (went >10 knots on a locked shaft and couldn't unlock it) and a bent stbd shaft with two blades missing.
The reason it happened: CDR Fast told us that the XO (on the bridge) on the Leftwich declared the Leftwich to be the newest and baddest thing on the west coast and had the port shaft on the Leftwich stopped and locked then he came after us on the stbd shaft at >20 knots (remember the <6 knots rule from above). Due to the locked port shaft and being off of the Leftwich's port beam, our sonar operators were under the impression that the Leftwich had gone to all stop (<6 Knots). The lookout for the Leftwich had reported the distance to the green smoke/flare as 2500 yards and their sonar reported our distance as 25000 yards (can you guess who they believed). After the accident investigation CDR Fast was absolved of wrong-doing and we heard that the XO on the Leftwich was given a letter of reprimand. We made an 8000 mile transit back to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on the surface in late Jan '83 for decommissioning - that sucked. Making the surface transit and the decommissioning that is.
This is from a man that was there and I would like to thank him.
Jeffery Wagner.