WATTS-CHRISTOPHER

KILLED  IN  WATERBORNE  TERRORIST  ATTACK

Christopher Eugene Watts was born on March 8, 1976, in Knoxville, Tennessee, attended Jefferson County High School through his junior year and following graduation from Fleming-Neon High School in Neon, Kentucky, reportedly joined the Navy in December 1994, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.  By April 2004 he had almost ten years of Navy service, planned to make it a career and was assigned as a Signalman Second Class aboard the USS FIREBOLT (PC-10), a coastal patrol ship.  The ship was forward deployed to Manama, Bahrain, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and was operating in the Northern Arabian Gulf where it was engaged in Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) operations.  On April 24, 2004, the first day of VBSS patrols inside the territorial waters of Iraq, SM2 Watts was a crewmember aboard a rigid hull inflatable boat (RHIB) which was patrolling a restricted area around the Khawr Al Amaya Oil Terminal. 

A number of local fishing boats in the area had been inspected when an approaching dhow boat caught the attention of the VBSS crew as the dhow was an unusual boat for the area and was decidedly different from the other boats in the vicinity.  When the dhow was observed to abruptly maneuver toward the oil terminal, it was ordered to alter course.  When the dhow failed to heed instructions, the RHIB was maneuvered into a position between the suspicious dhow and the oil terminal.  On intercepting the dhow it did not answer bridge-to-bridge queries, was unresponsive to loud-hailer directions and maintained a direct course toward the oil terminal.  As the RHIB approached the dhow and preparing to board it, the dhow suddenly violently exploded which capsized the RHIB and threw its occupants into the water.  Unfortunately SM2 Watts and two of his fellow crewmembers were killed by the explosion and the other four crewmen were seriously injured.   

About 16-minutes later two other boats exploded in the vicinity of another nearby oil terminal but were disabled by crew-directed weapons fire from the altered security forces on the terminals.  A Jordanian militant with links to al-Qaida subsequently claimed responsibility for the explosions.  Analysists believe the dhow was part of a coordinated terrorist attack on Iraq’s infrastructure and that the actions of SM2 Watts and his security team prevented a large scale environmental disaster and a strategic blow to the coalition forces that would have been caused by damage to the oil pipeline or destruction of the offshore oil terminals.  For his heroic actions SM2 Watts was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart Medals.  He has been laid to final rest at the Cedar Grove Baptist Cemetery in Cedar Grove, Tennessee.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)