Did Kerry write the action report?

The Chicago Sun Times has a piece by Thomas Lipscomb that examines the question of just who wrote the action report that led to Bronze Stars for both Kerry and Thurlow.

First of all, Thurlow did not write it, even though it would normally have fallen to him after the incident. The report was written by someone designated "TE 194.5.4.4/1."

Now "TE" is not some person's initials. It stands for "Task Element", which is defined by the numbers that follow. In this case

"194" is Adm. Elmo Zumwalt, commander of U.S. naval forces in Vietnam; "5" is Hoffman's swift boat command; "4" is Lonsdale's command, and the last "4" is Capt. George Elliot's swift boat base at An Thoi, where the boats on this mission were based. The last "1" indicates someone other than the commander of the mission. If the report had been submitted by the mission commander, in this case Thurlow, according to the operations order, it would have begun with a "C" for commander of the Task Element, and the sender would have been "CTE 194.5.4.4."

Thurlow definitely did not write the report. So who did?

According to a Navy communications expert, Chief Petty Officer Troy Jenkins, who has examined the message traffic, the report in question was sent from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer, Lonsdale's command ship, at 11:20 that night. Only three of the officers on the mission that day were on the Spencer, John Kerry, Dick Pease and Donald Droz. Droz took the wounded from the mine explosion to be examined and treated at the Spencer, including the third officer, the severely wounded Dick Pease. Since the Spencer had no helipad for the evacuation of the wounded, Droz then had to return to the USS Washtenaw County, stationed about 25 nautical miles away, leaving only Kerry aboard the Spencer at the time the message was sent at 11:20 p.m. Could Droz have somehow written the report? Lonsdale says command precedence of days in swift boat service alone rules this out. "According to the command procedure I set down, Kerry would have been the only logical candidate. Kerry had been in Vietnam since November. Droz just arrived at An Thoi in February." Thurlow adds, "I never liked the paperwork anyway. I was happy to have Kerry write them up."

The documentary evidence supporting Kerry's account of events that day now becomes what lawyers call a "self serving document". Its probitive value is somewhat diminished, don't you think?