Breaking News: Dick O’Kane Posthumously Stripped of Medal of Honor After Logs Reveal Rampant Informality
RADM Fluckey is next
Former Submarine Commanding Officer Richard O’Kane was posthumously stripped of his Medal of Honor yesterday, after recently obtained WWII Data Collection Records revealed that USS Tang did not log “Ship Ready” during 24 Firing Point Procedures.
“RADM O’Kane’s performance as a CO was exemplary, but his Medal of Honor sends the wrong message to today’s generation of submariners,” said SUBFOR PAO CDR Paul Murphy in an official statement. “We don’t want our officers to think that informality and improper litanies are ever acceptable.”
Formality is one of the seven watchstanding principles of the nuclear navy.
The Subpar Group is unable to confirm if O’Kane never verified “Ship Ready” or if “Ship Ready” was simply not logged because the crew was responding to incoming torpedoes.
The famous submarine skipper sank 33 ships totalling over 118,000 tons and was given the Medal of Honor for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity” during his submarine’s final operations against Japanese shipping.
“Look, I understand for decades we’ve focused on O’Kane’s results, but without a shared mental model and strict formality in CONTROL sinking over 118,00 tons is simply ‘answer by accident’,” said Groton Graybeard CAPT (ret.) Harrison Matthews. “If we do some more digging there, I think we might not like what we find.”
The tradition of passing down the O’Kane Cribbage Board to the wardroom of the oldest boat in the fleet will be discontinued. A SUBPAC representative informed SUBPAR that the USS Key West (SSN-722) will turn over custody of the O’Kane Cribbage Board to Naval Reactors.
A joint COMSUBLANT-COMSUBPAC GENADMIN is expected to be released as within the coming days for an Urgent Change to the Deployment Preparations Manual. The corrective action will add a mandatory week-long Proper Litany Cultural course in the SSN/SSGN Deployment Preparations Period.
COMSUBLANT-COMSUBPAC has also begun the initial fact finding into similar missteps by RADM Fluckey, who allegedly did not require complete TDBRAD contact reports on multiple occasions during his command.