Honda Point Disaster - Court Martial

Court Martial

Ultimately, a Navy court ruled that the disaster was the fault of the commodore and the ship's navigators. They also assigned blame to the captain of each ship, following the tradition that a captain's first responsibility is to his own ship, even when it is part of a formation. In the aftermath of the Honda point disaster, eleven officers involved in the incident were summoned to be brought to trial by General Courts-martial on the charges of negligence and culpable inefficiency to perform one’s duty. This was the largest single group to ever be court-martialed in US Navy history. The court ruled that the events of the Honda Point Disaster were "directly attributable to bad errors and faulty navigation" by Captain Watson. Captain Edward H. Watson, who was in command of the flagship USS Delphy, was relieved of his seniority while three other men were admonished. The rest of the officers who were court-martialed were acquitted of their charges. Captain Watson was commended by his peers and by the government for assuming full responsibility of the events that transpired at Honda Point. While he could have blamed a variety of factors, such as the strange currents produced from the Japan earthquake, for the loss of Destroyer Squadron Eleven, Captain Watson was said to have set a great example for those under his command by allowing the blame to be set upon his shoulders.