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Article snippet: As an American destroyer cruised off the waters of Japan in clear weather after 2 a.m. Saturday, only a few dozen of the crew of 350 were likely to be awake: standing watch, keeping the engines running, manning the bridge. Then, Navy officers with decades of experience at sea say, there were probably minutes of sheer terror aboard the Fitzgerald before the collision with an enormous container ship that killed seven sailors. “My guess is they suddenly saw the lights of the other ship coming toward them and tried to veer off,” said retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, whose book “Destroyer Captain” recounts his time commanding a similar ship in the mid-1990s. “Suddenly your ship is sinking under you. It’s terrifying.” Navy leaders on Sunday hailed the efforts of the surviving sailors who struggled to seal off compartments and pump out the water that poured in through gaping holes torn in the starboard side. “Heroic efforts prevented the flooding from catastrophically spreading, which could have caused the ship to founder or sink,” said Vice Adm. Joseph P. Aucoin, commander of the Navy’s Seventh Fleet. “It could have been much worse.” With the aid of tugboats, the Fitzgerald returned on Saturday to its port, the American base at Yokosuka, Japan, south of Tokyo. As hundreds of anxious spouses, children and fellow sailors waited for word, Navy divers entered flooded compartments below decks and recovered the bodies of seven sailors, according to former Navy officials. The... Link to the full article to read more