Sailors aboard a US guided missile submarine created a so-called “rape list” in 2018 where they ranked female crewmembers and detailed the sexual acts they wanted to perform with them, according to an investigation report obtained by the news outlet military.com through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
The 74-page investigation found that two years after the USS Florida became the second navy submarine to integrate enlisted women, “rumours of a ‘rape list’ were promulgated throughout the crew”. There was no word whether the probe is still under way.
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“Significant numbers of females became concerned for their safety, and male members who learned of the list were equally repulsed,” the report cited Rear Adm. Jeff Jablon, then-commander of Submarine Group 10, as saying.
The probe reportedly found that “lewd and sexist comment and jokes were tolerated” on board, while trust among the crewmembers and senior officers “was non-existent”.
There were 32 women among the 173-person crew, and the male crewmembers held a vote every few weeks to update the “sexually explicit rape list”, stored on the submarine’s computer network.
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The list “describes various USS Florida females by appearances, characteristics and various sexual acts the creators of the list wish to perform with them. The list describes aggressive sexual activity, but does not reference non-consensual acts”, the probe pointed out.
Even though the Florida submarine’s then-commanding officer Gregory Kercher was alerted about the list in June 2018, he refused to launch a formal investigation over what he described as a “piece of paper”. Kercher was removed from the post two months later, following an inquiry into the case.
This comes after several sailors from another American submarine, the USS Wyoming, were found guilty of participating in an alleged ring that shared videos of female shipmates undressing aboard the sub in 2014.
