THE PENTAGON — The U.S. Navy relieved the commanding officer of the USS Placentia (LCS-69) on Friday due to his inability to complete daily Wordle puzzles successfully. The Commander had only served three months as captain.

The Navy said that Cmdr. Scott Enbreddinner had failed to complete the last three Wordles and had only a 27% efficiency rating at solving the daily puzzles. One of his more recent failures was not recognizing the word OCEAN. But the final straw, according to officials, was his ignorance of and lack of hatred for Billy Mitchell.

Senior Navy officials say western naval officers must master word games to stay ahead of their counterparts from Russia, China, and North Korea. The U.K., for example, requires its officers to complete the Sunday Times crossword puzzle in ink in 45 minutes each week.

Officials noted that the U.S. Navy uses simple word puzzles to educate future Naval leaders. They described how the Navy has designed an escalating program of increasingly difficult word puzzles to sharpen the minds and expand the vocabulary of its officers.