Photos Show Pilots Stripping Girl, 17 : Military: Incident with drunken teen occurred in same hotel hallway where 26 women were groped by officers.

Pentagon investigators have been given several rolls of film that contain pictures of an intoxicated 17-year-old girl being manhandled and undressed by dozens of rowdy naval aviators at the 1991 Tailhook convention on the same night more than two dozen women said they were assaulted in the same hotel hallway.

The drunken teen-ager, who was a guest at the hotel, staggered out of a hospitality suite and was immediately pounced upon by male Marine and Navy aviators, who removed her jeans and panties, all while someone photographed the incident.

Sources said aviators at Miramar Naval Air Station who “had a bout of conscience” have turned over as many as five rolls of film to investigators from the Pentagon’s Inspector General’s Office.

Although some of the photos are said to be dark and grainy, there is at least one clear photo of a young, partially naked woman who had apparently been stripped in a gantlet of drunken Navy and Marine Corps aviators, sources said.

Investigators have taken the photographs and film to Washington, where the photos will be studied and possibly enhanced in an attempt to identify officers guilty of misconduct.

In May, the Navy said several officers were guilty of criminal wrongdoing at the convention. However, no officers have been charged with crimes.

A witness to the incident, who asked to remain anonymous, said he was on the third floor at the Las Vegas Hilton when the girl, whom he described as “knee-walking drunk,” staggered into the hallway.

“This obviously underage, short female staggered out of one of the suites and was immediately swept up by the crowd,” said the witness, who had gone to the third floor with his roommate to look for a friend.

According to several reports, as many as 200 officers crowded into the third-floor hallway, forming a gantlet in which as many as 26 women--13 of them fellow Navy officers--were groped and sexually assaulted.

“This young girl was literally passed from man to man into the main part of the crowd,” the witness said. “Various parts of her clothing were being pulled off. They got to remove her jeans and panties before two hotel security guards came to her rescue.”

One of the photos taken of the incident showed her being led away by a hotel security guard. As the teen-ager was being escorted out of the hallway, an unidentified officer ran after her and the guards, waving the young woman’s jeans and panties, the witness added.

“She was very drunk and could hardly stand up. You could describe her as being knee-walking drunk,” the witness said. “When she walked by me when she was being taken away, I saw her smiling and grinning. It was kind of sad.”

A source who saw photographs of the teen-ager said she appeared to have been drenched with beverages during the episode.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the photographs or other details of the investigation.

“We’re just not going to give a blow-by-blow of who (investigators have) talked to or what they’re going (to do) or where they’re going,” the spokesman said.

Hotel security guards reportedly told Naval Investigative Service agents that they had not seen anything amiss on the third floor, despite charges by more than two dozen women who said they were stripped, fondled, bitten or sexually assaulted by drunken officers.

NIS agents conducted an investigation of the Tailhook scandal for the Navy, but congressional critics complained that the NIS probe was bungled. A second investigation was begun by the Defense Department’s inspector general last month.

Sources familiar with the Pentagon probe said investigators on the inspector general’s staff found two other women who said they were sexually assaulted during the incident. However, the women, both reserve officers living in Orange County, said they have declined to file charges against their assailants.

About 300 Navy officers at Miramar were interviewed by Pentagon investigators. With political pressure mounting both inside and outside the military to find and punish the culprits, the traditional rivalry between the Navy and Marine Corps has turned ugly.

“The Navy guys can ID the Marine guys (in the photographs), but they don’t seem to be able to ID the guys they spent three years in (flight) school with,” one Marine pilot said. “They closed ranks pretty much like everyone expected.”

An officer at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Orange County blasted Navy commanders and pilots at Miramar, who recently began to assign some of the blame for the Tailhook sex scandal to Marine Corps and Air Force pilots who also attended the convention.

“They’re pointing the finger at the Marines and Air Force,” the Marine said. “Same way it works in Washington, trying to put the heat on somebody else.”

Investigators from the inspector general will move from Miramar to El Toro next week, said Lt. Brad Bartelt, an El Toro spokesman. The force of investigators and staff members will total 18.

The San Diego-based Tailhook Assn. has 16,000 members and was founded in 1956 to promote naval aviation. It takes its name from the hooks that snare planes landing on aircraft carriers.

The group’s officers, who are mostly retired Navy aviators, condemned the assaults during the 1991 convention and said that officers charged with misconduct or illegal activity should be prosecuted.