A young boatswain's mate committed suicide on the destroyer James E. Williams in June and a subsequent investigation has found the ship's skipper, the former executive officer and the command master chief responsible for a toxic command climate that contributed to the tragedy.
When investigators started digging into the suicide, they found a ship with a rogue chiefs mess led by a junior command master chief with an alcohol problem, and a CO and XO either oblivious or unwilling to reign in the mess, according to a newly released report obtained by Navy Times.
The 313-page report found the James E. Williams' top enlisted, CMC Travis Biswell, failed to control a chief's mess that fostered a "culture of retribution" where sailors were afraid to report to their senior leaders for fear of their chiefs. Furthermore, the report found neither the CO, Cmdr. Curtis Calloway, nor the XO, Cmdr. Ed Handley, did enough to address the poor atmosphere on board.
Calloway's failure to hold chief petty officers accountable, concluded Carrier Strike Group 12 boss, Rear Adm. Andrew Lewis, "enabled a culture that empowered CPOs to target, belittle and bully junior Sailors."
Lewis concluded that Calloway failed to identify or correct the problems.
"Cmdr. Calloway was either willfully blind to the problems on board his ship or he was in an extremely negligent state of denial," Lewis wrote in a Sept. 26 endorsement. "He owned the culture that, I believe, contributed to the suicide of [the boatswain's mate]."
Handley had turned over as XO three weeks before the suicide and was off the ship at leadership school, but was cited by Lewis for the breakdown of command programs, which failed to adequately support the sailor when she was in crisis.
The investigation into the climate on board began in June, a month into their deployment, after Boatswain's Mate Seaman Yeshabel Villot-Carrasco ingested a lethal dose of the over-the-counter sleep aid Unisom.
Villot-Carrasco took the sleeping pills after being written up for talking to another sailor as she was standing aft lookout, the report said, noting that there were rumors the married E-3 was carrying on an affair with the other sailor.
The report said she was confronted by a superior and counseled for failing to keep a proper watch, but indicated that the counseling likely took place because of the rumors about the affair. Afterward Villot-Carrasco filed an equal opportunity complaint alleging she was being singled out because of her gender since no one else had been counseled for talking on watch.
After she filed the EO report, her superior told her she was being written up and would face non-judicial punishment, an action the report found to be a clear case of reprisal.
Calloway, Handley and Biswell did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Monday.
Shortly thereafter, Villot-Carrasco took the sleep aids. After discovering her in a distraught state, one sailor reported, Villot-Carrasco told her she thought everyone was against her and felt like everything was "crashing down," according to the report.
The sailor rushed to get help, but by the time she returned, Villot-Carrasco had already begun to lose consciousness.
The report notes that sailors in the ship's medical fought for three-quarters of an hour to revive her but ultimately could not.
The reprisal that preceded Villot-Carrasco's suicide was part of a deeper problem on board the destroyer, the report found.
A separate enclosure alleged that Biswell, the CMC, was getting drunk "in every liberty port." In one port visit in Norway, several sailors claim to have seen the CMC take his shirt off and twirl it around his head.
In Seychelles, he claims he had about seven beers during a "Beer on the Pier" party, then got on the 1MC after and told everyone on the ship to "get in their f------- racks," which neither Calloway nor the current XO reported up the chain of command.
Biswell, an operations specialist, made command master chief in 15 years, which is rare. Most CMCs have well over 20 years in the Navy.
The report also stated that another chief on board had an abusive style with her sailors and "dropped F-bombs like commas." One sailor claimed to have "never been more disrespected, humiliated and insulted by a single individual" than the chief described.
Even more troubling, multiple chief petty officers are accused of sexually assaulting a junior sailor in a hotel in Seychelles while she was too intoxicated to consent. The sailor is suspected to have been impregnated during the assault, the report claims, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is investigating.
The report makes clear that investigators and leadership believe the climate on James E. Williams contributed to Villot-Carrasco's suicide.
Calloway, Handley and Biswell were all disciplined at captain's mast and Biswell was referred for alcohol treatment.
Additionally, the supervisor who wrote up Villot-Carrasco was given non-judicial punishment for leadership failures and for the "clear equal-opportunity reprisal against" Villot-Carrasco, the report said.
In his letter, strike group commander Lewis said he was troubled by the revelations in the report.
"I am incredibly disappointed in the leadership triad for allowing a climate of fear and intimidation to take hold," Lewis wrote.
