The former acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly may have exaggerated his reason for firing USS Theodore Roosevelt captain Brian Crozier after coronavirus spread through his ship, emails show.

Emails obtained by the Washington Post show Crozier contacted three admirals and seven captains to say he had not done enough to protect his crew from infection when they docked in Guam.

The four-page memo pleading with Navy leaders to allow the 4,800-person crew to leave the ship after sailors tested positive for the virus was then leaked and shared with the press.

Modly fired Crozier for 'sharing the memo with 30 people' deemed to be outside his normal chain of command.

But the new emails show Modly only contacted ten people in total.

In an email that accompanied his controversial memo that led to his dismissal, Navy Captain Brett Crozier said he believed he had not done enough once the ship reached Guam

This email from Captain Crozier accompanied the memo and was previously unseen. Crozier sent it to three admirals and copied in seven captains. Modly said he had sent the document to 30 people

The email note that accompanied the leaked memo was previously unseen until published by the Washington Post Thursday.

It reveals more about the reasoning behind Crozier's actions and the Navy officials included in the communication.

They were released as the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday continued his investigation into Crozier's firing and said it may result in his reinstatement.

Modly initially stated that Crozier's message on March 30 was sent to as many as 30 Navy officials but it was in fact only addressed to three admirals and copied to seven other Navy captains.

Crozier started by telling the admirals that he would 'gladly' follow them 'into battle whenever needed' but he had determined that he needed to ask for help, admitting that he had been a part of the slow response to the outbreak on board.

Crew from the ship are still being tested. There were 655 confirmed cases as of Thursday

U.S. Sailors assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt depart the ship to move to off-ship berthing on April 10. The ship is the center of a Navy controversy after its captain sent a note to Navy leaders asking for the crew to be allowed disembark and was fired

By the time he had sent the email, Crozier and the USS Theodore Roosevelt were docked in Guam after two dozen sailors tested positive for coronavirus.

There are now 655 confirmed coronavirus cases among the ship's crew and one sailor died Tuesday.

Crozier claimed that he should have done more when the ship reached Guam to ensure that the sailors were able to leave the ship at a faster rate.

The disembarkation had been slow and the vast majority of the crew remained on board despite the increasing number of cases as officials searched for hotel space where the sailors could quarantine.

'I fully realize that I bear responsibility for not demanding more decisive action the moment we pulled in, but at this point my only priority is the continued well-being of the crew and embarked staff,' Crozier wrote in previously unreported comments

'I believe if there is ever a time to ask for help it is now regardless of the impact on my career,' he added after outlining the mass potential exposure on board and detailing the large number of sailors who may have coronavirus.

The email was addressed to Rear Adm. Stuart Baker, his immediate commanding officer; Adm. John Aquilino, the top commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet; and Vice Adm. DeWolfe Miller, the officer overseeing all naval forces in the Pacific.

The seven people it was copied to were all Navy captains.

Thousands of sailors from the ship are now quarantined in hotels in Guam.

As of Thursday, testing of the crew was still ongoing but 655 sailors had tested positive among 4,574 examined -more than 14 percent.

Six more sailors are hospitalized, including one in intensive care, and on Tuesday a sailor died from the virus, the first fatality in the active-duty military during the pandemic.

It's believed sailors originally picked up the virus during a port call in Da Nang, Vietnam on March 5.

The ship docked for five days there as part of a long-planned event to mark the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the country and the United States.

The USS Roosevelt is docked in Guam. 655 crew members have tested positive to COVID-19, four of whom are currently in hospital. On Monday, the Roosevelt suffered its first coronavirus fatality, when an unidentified sailor died from the virus and a second is in intensive care

Military officials at the time did not know the extent to which coronavirus would spread around the world and when the ship docked, there were fewer than two dozen cases confirmed in Vietnam, all on the opposite side of the country.

Once the ship went back to sea, fear of exposure on board was known as early as March 14 when two British tour its who had stayed in the same hotel as a group of the crew members tested positive.

A team from the Biological Defense Research Directorate at Fort Detrick was brought in as concerns grew and cleaning procedures increased. Those feared to have been exposed where isolated.

By March 24, a letter was sent to family members of sailors to inform them of the potential exposure but warned that information could not be shared publicly as it could place the ship at risk.

'Yesterday evening, a few sailors did the right and brave thing, reporting to medical they were experiencing flu-like symptoms,' Crozier wrote to families.

'These sailors were tested . . . and this morning the results of the tests indicated positive results for coronavirus.

'Operational security regarding both ship movements and our medical readiness is sensitive information and should not be made public,' he added.

The same day, Modly announced that three sailors tested positive and were to be airlifted from the ship but that the rest of crew were to stay at sea.

'This is an example of our ability to keep our ships deployed at sea, underway even with active COVID-19 cases,' Modly said.

The virus quickly spread in the close quarters of the ship, however, and by March 26 officials made the decision to dock in Guam where soldiers slowly came to shore.

The Navy was then faced with a challenge in finding hotel space for the crew as hotel employees had been laid off due to the pandemic.

'The problem was there was no place to put them at that time,' the senior defense official said.

'The governor of Guam had started working with the hotel industry to get the hotels reopened. But that doesn't happen overnight.'

Over the next few days, Crozier spoke with at least one one senior Navy admiral in Washington on March 28, and with Robert Love, Modly's chief of staff, on March 29, before he sent the controversial memo on March 30.

Crozier was controversially fired by acting Navy secretary Thomas B. Modly (pictured) after the email leaked. Modly, meanwhile, has resigned after receiving blowback about his actions

Sailors assigned to Commander, Submarine Squadron Fifteen escort a Sailor assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt who has tested negative for COVID-19 to a hotel room in Guam. Thousands of sailors from the ship are in quarantine in Guam

In the accompanying email, the captain said that he understood military officials at Naval Base Guam were 'doing the best they can' but insisted that the crew could not remain on the ship much longer.

'While I understand that there are political concerns with requesting the use of hotels on Guam to truly isolate the remaining 4,500 Sailors 14+ days, the hotels are empty, and I believe it is the only way to quickly combat the problem,' Crozier wrote.

The memo that accompanied the note led to Crozier's dismissal by April 2 as Acting Navy Secretary Modly branded it 'naive and 'stupid' in a speech to the ship's crew.

Modly flew to Guam to speak to the crew of the aircraft carrier following the firing of its commander, calling his actions a 'betrayal of trust'.

'If he didn't think, in my opinion, that this information wasn't going to get out into the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either, A, too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this,' Modly continued.

'The alternative is that he did this on purpose.'

Capt Crozier's dismissal was condemned by sailors on the ship who cheered and clapped as he left for the final time but he may yet be reinstated, according to Esper and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday, who would have the final say.

An investigation into the dismissal was completed last week and a report is now making its way through the Navy's chain of command before a decision is made.

'It will come to me at some point in time. As I'm in the chain of command, I can't comment on that further, but I got to keep an open mind with regard to everything,' Esper told NBC News Thursday.

Esper was pushed on whether the decision to reinstate Capt. Crozier would mean that his firing was wrong in the first place but he refused to comment.

'We've got to take this one step at a time, let the investigation within the navy conclude itself ... and we'll make very reasoned opinions and judgement as this progresses,' he responded.

His comments came after the New York Times reported that Adm. Michael M. Gilday, the chief of naval operations who would have the final say, has indicated that he may reinstate Captain Crozier.

'I am taking no options off the table as I review that investigation,' he told reporters.

'I think that is my responsibility.'

He had previously warned Acting Secretary Modly not to fire Crozier.

'No final decisions have been made,' Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the admiral, said.

A decision on Crozier's potential reinstatement is expected this week.