Some of Damaged Destroyer’s Crew Makes It Home to S.D. for Holidays

Almost one-third of the crew of the crippled destroyer Kinkaid stepped off an Air Force C-141 transport at North Island Air Station late Friday afternoon, in time to be with family and friends for the holidays.

The 563-foot warship, with its crew of 297 sailors and 20 officers, collided with a 430-foot Panama-registered freighter at 5:19 a.m. Nov. 12, about 240 miles northwest of Singapore, killing the Kinkaid’s navigator and seriously injuring five other Navy men.

“I felt an abrasive shock, and I thought I was dreaming, and I was knocked out of my rack,” said one of the operations specialists who had gone to sleep just before the accident. “I went up to my battle station and from there just went on and started fighting fires.”

Several fires broke out after the accident, which ripped a 15-by-56-foot hole on the starboard side of the ship.

“It was scary at first, and then everybody just pulled together and the damage-control training helped a lot, and we got the fires out,” said a petty officer who was with the helicopter detachment in the area of the accident. “I had no idea what was happening. I just held on.”

Yeoman Robert Maybry said, “It happened so early in the morning. It was just a scary feeling, and I’m just glad to be home.”

The Kinkaid, which is in Subic Bay, Philippines, undergoing repairs, had been due back in San Diego on Dec. 15, which would have allowed the crew to be with their families for the holidays. The delay changed some plans.

“We were going to go somewhere for Christmas and then go on a trip to Acapulco by ourselves,” said Lisa Williams, the wife of Hospital Corpsman Steven Williams, who was on his first deployment at sea. “I had bought the tickets and made arrangements and everything.

“I wanted to see him by myself,” she said. “You can’t be without the person you’re married to for so long without it hurting.”

This was the first group of sailors from the Kinkaid to be able to come home, except the five seamen injured in the accident who were flown back to the United States in mid-November. Two more increments of sailors will come home at dates to be decided.

It was determined that the Kinkaid was not fit to make the 8,000-mile journey without repairs. No estimate was available as to how long complete repairs will take, although Navy officials said the ship should return in the spring.

An investigation into the cause of the accident is still under way, said Navy officials.