EXCLUSIVE: Navy Mom Says USS Benfold Left Without Toilets & Powerless for Four Days After Needed Repairs Were Pulled

A U.S. Navy destroyer carrying roughly 300 sailors allegedly lost power and propulsion in the South China Sea and sat stranded for four days in extreme heat while waiting for a tow.

According to the mother of a sailor aboard the USS Benfold, DDG 65, the ship had serious mechanical problems before it was ever sent back across the Pacific.

We are calling her Rebecca because she and her family fear possible retaliation.

Her son described the experience with one word:

“Hell.”

Rebecca says Benfold lost power around July 24.

“They had no power. All engines were broken. Four days adrift at extreme heat conditions.”

The crew had bottled water, but the inside of the ship reportedly became unbearable.

“They couldn’t go into the ship because it was an ‘oven.’”

Sailors slept on deck.

The plumbing allegedly failed. Toilets stopped working. Normal meals could not be cooked. Rebecca says sailors were forced to use buckets for human waste and dump it overboard. Eventually, she says, Benfold was towed into Subic Bay in the Philippines.

“They had to wait the four days for the tow into Subic. They were told there would be 900 meals on the pier. The meals weren’t there.”

But the bigger question is what happened before the breakdown.

Benfold had spent roughly a decade forward deployed in Japan before relocating to Everett, Washington.

The Navy publicly said the ship would undergo maintenance before returning to operations.

Rebecca says the crew was then told, just one week before they were supposed to enter repairs, that the plan had changed.

“They were told a week before they were supposed to go into repair that they weren’t going and were possibly going to the 5th Fleet or back to the 7th.”

Her son had already been worried about the ship.

“My son said he was surprised it made it up the California coast prior to this. They only had one engine out of three working!”

But the public timeline is striking:

July 21: Replenishment at sea
July 22 to 23: South China Sea operations
Approximately July 24 to 28: Alleged four day power and propulsion casualty
July 30: Benfold absent when the rest of its strike group visits Da Nang
Late July through approximately August 6: Alleged repair period in Subic Bay
August 9: Navy photographs Benfold underway again in the Philippine Sea
August 13: Benfold apparently arrives in Yokosuka

That timeline fits Rebecca’s account remarkably well.

Rebecca and her husband have nearly 40 years of combined active duty service.

“This is completely unacceptable!” she said.

“This is not the Navy my husband and I were in.”

Her husband still works for the Department of Defense, which is one reason the family is worried about speaking publicly.

“My husband is concerned about repercussions!”

The Navy needs to answer a very simple question:

Was USS Benfold knowingly sent back into the Pacific despite serious unresolved mechanical problems?

Because if the answer is yes, then roughly 300 American sailors may have paid the price for that decision.

They deserve answers.

And so do the American people.

We have reached out to the US Navy for comment. Thus far we have not heard back.

@krassensteinEXCLUSIVE: USS Benfold left without power, toilets, Air Conditioning for 4 days in 105 degree heat, after Trump admin scrapped repairs. #ussbenfold #usnavy #trump #hegseth #military

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