The acting head of the US navy resigned on Tuesday over his controversial handling of the firing of the aircraft carrier captain who had asked the Pentagon for help dealing with a coronavirus outbreak on the ship.
Mark Esper, the US defence secretary, said Thomas Modly, who had served as acting navy head since November, had resigned earlier on Tuesday.
The acting secretary — the top civilian leadership position in the navy — had come under intense criticism for saying that Captain Brett Crozier had been “too naive or too stupid” to command the USS Theodore Roosevelt in remarks during a visit to the carrier, which is docked in Guam as the navy grapples with dozens of coronavirus cases on the ship.