by Robert Williscroft

Created on: April 30, 2008   Last Updated: September 09, 2008

Had nothing at all happened on July 22, 2004, it still would have been a sad day for the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-67). Retired Navy Capt. Charles R. Smith Jr., who was Kennedy's first Executive Officer on her maiden voyage in 1968, died of heart and lung disease in Sandusky, Ohio .

Smith was a self-deprecating hero who was credited with saving a school by staying with his stricken RA-5C Vigilante spy plane following a flameout over central Florida in 1967. After ordering his copilot to bail, he managed to land the craft safely.

During his nearly 30 years as a Navy flier, Smith received among other decorations the Distinguished Flying Cross twice, the Bronze Star for Valor, and 14 Air Medals.

On that Thursday afternoon in the Persian Gulf, the 5,000 men and women comprising the crew of the Kennedy paused to remember one of theirs. And then they returned to flight ops that lasted well into the night, flight ops in support of operations against Iraqi insurgents.

The USS John F. Kennedy Strike Group, under the command of Rear Adm. Donald K. Bullard, normally consists of the carrier and its air wing, two cruisers, four destroyers, two attack submarines, and a fast combat support ship. The Navy isn't saying how much of this armada was actually present on July 22, but we know that the British frigate HMS Somerset was trailing the Kennedy in case someone went overboard during flight operations.

According to numerous news accounts, during the flight operations the crew spotted a radar contact 13 miles distant from the Kennedy and identified it as a fishing dhow, typical of many vessels that ply the Gulf waters. Although in the middle of flight ops, Kennedy tried repeatedly to contact the dhow to warn it away from the operations.

Non-seagoing readers should understand that the International Rules of the Road, which are mandatory for all vessels everywhere, specifically give the right-of-way to ships immediately involved in flight operations. The reason for this rule is intuitively obvious, for if a carrier about to receive a landing plane were suddenly to shift its heading to avoid another vessel, the landing aircraft would just as suddenly find water instead of deck beneath its landing gear.

This is precisely and exactly the situation that confronted the Kennedy on that fateful night.

Capt. Stephen G. Squires was running with a full head of steam in international waters on a course designed to give his approaching aircraft maximum headwind. He knew about the

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