Word: kaprow
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...amid all the chaos and shouting, the sound heard next was more startling. Sailors on the Churchill's stern, suspecting that their ship had run aground - meaning Graf's career would be instantly over - broke gleefully into song: "Ding dong, the witch is dead!" Newly arrived Navy chaplain Maurice Kaprow could not believe what he was seeing and hearing. "Someone came up to me and said, 'We've run aground - she's finished,' " he recalls. "I was flabbergasted. They were jumping for joy and singing on the fantail." As it turned out, one of the ship's propellers had broken...
...Navy had warning signs about Graf after her time on the Curtis Wilbur, it didn't seem to pay them any heed. Instead, in 2003, Graf made U.S. Navy history by becoming the first female commander of a destroyer, the Churchill. Kaprow, the Jewish chaplain, recalls his time aboard the Churchill in 2003 as the strangest of more than 200 such visits to ships in his 20-year career. Morale was the lowest he had ever encountered on any vessel. Kaprow says he tried to talk to Graf about her leadership style after 10 days aboard. "I told...
After about 10 days aboard the Churchill, concerned about poor morale on the eve of war, Kaprow visited Graf in her stateroom. "I told her, 'I'm getting some vibes - you're a nice lady and you have a hard job' - I'm telling her some of the junior officers are concerned and are really upset," Kaprow recalled. "I'm giving her the spiel, and she just goes bonkers and cuts me off. She said she didn't want to talk about it." (See the best pictures...
...rest of his time aboard, they didn't speak to each other. "I became a pariah, and she just refused to talk to me," Kaprow said. "When she saw me eating in the wardroom, she'd come in and grab her food and run away - she would not talk to me." Kaprow can't explain how Graf continued to rise up the Navy command ladder. "Certain people in the Navy are preselected for command, and no matter what happens, the Navy will make sure that it happens," he said...
After more than a month on Graf's ship, Kaprow left for the carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt to tell Graf's superior what he had witnessed. He was the second senior officer from the ship to complain to superiors about Graf. "I told all of this to the commodore," Kaprow said, "but I don't know what happened to it from there." Back on the Churchill, officers who knew that Kaprow was meeting with the commodore waited anxiously for a change in the Churchill's command climate. It never came...