President George W. Bush yesterday ordered a review of civilian activity during military exercises after the sinking of a Japanese trawler in a collision with a US submarine near Hawaii.
Two civilians were at control positions when the USS Greeneville rose rapidly to the surface, hitting the Japanese fishing vessel, Ehime Maru, but US Navy officials have said they were closely supervised.
Nine people, including four 17-year-old fisheries students, are missing and presumed dead.
The 53-metre trawler sank within minutes of the collision.
In an interview with NBC television, one of the passengers, Mr John Hall, said he pulled the lever to make the vessel surface. He remembered "a lot of crewmen calling out to [the commander] that they had gone through their procedure and the procedures were OK."
Mr Hall said "maybe 10 minutes" passed between the visual sweeps and the submarine coming out of the water.
"The seaman that was standing next to me put his hands over mine to make sure the levers were in and locked and said `sit down'," Mr Hall said. "Immediately the submarine began to rise and it came very quickly."
Mr Hall said that as the submarine rose out of the water, he could feel the nose come down.
"Just when it was starting to come down . . . there was a very loud noise and the entire submarine shuddered," he said. According to Mr Hall, the sub's commander, Cmdr Scott Waddle, said, "Jesus, what the hell was that?", immediately looked out the periscope and said they had hit the fishing boat. "He said the name of the boat," Mr Hall said. "He must have been able to see the stern of the ship."
Another civilian who was on the submarine at the time of the accident said they were sent to the crew mess, where there was a screen to view what could be seen through the periscope.
"We saw the vessel taking on water. It was evident," said Mr Todd Thoman. "In a very orderly fashion the sailors on the ship began preparing that room and bringing up equipment to prepare that room for whatever might be occurring outside," he said.
In a sign of growing resentment against the US military in Japan, a town assembly on the southern island of Okinawa yesterday called for the withdrawal of all US marines from the island. The assembly in the town of Chatan, north of the Okinawan capital Naha, also unanimously called for the resignation of the commander of US forces on the island, LieutGen Earl Hailston, for describing senior Japanese officials as "nuts" and "wimps" in a private e-mail.