The old warship was decommissioned in 1956, sold for scrap. Lava's technical capabilities. She was armed with a main battery of twelve 14-inch/50 caliber guns mounted in four turrets of three guns each, with each gun mounted in a separate sleeve. It's possible that the powder bags began to smoke because they were old, so the gun captain rammed the bags with too much power. The ceremony was held at San Pedro, California on 17 June 1924. The accident occurred when rescuers were removing the body of the gun pointer, who was found sitting at his post with his finger still on the trigger. He is the founder and editor for the blogs Japan Security Watch, Asia Security Watch and War Is Boring. "They were trying to build up the Navy. USS Mississippi was commissioned into service. The explosion tore through the No. See attached. -23), the erstwhile Normandie, pride of the Compagnie . Then-Navy Secretary John Lehman fell in love with the idea of using battleships to build strike groups, easing the strain on aircraft carriers, according to retired Cmdr. According to the findings from a 1944 investigation by the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, the explosion in turret No. The blast, which killed 47 men on five of the six levels inside the No. HTML tags are not allowed. Seamen in the upper chambers of the gun turret died instantly in the fiery explosion; those in the lower levels were suffocated as the blast siphoned off their oxygen. ww2dbaseMississippi was converted to a gunnery training and weapons development ship in 1946, and given the new hull number AG-128. You need to be a member in order to leave a comment. The 1924 disaster was attributed to insufficient air blast to clear the gun barrels, resulting in smoldering debris igniting powder bags as they were rammed in during reloading. The deck was armored to 3.5 inches and the conning tower to sixteen inches. The World War II Database is founded and managed by July 1999. p. 9. Repulse have gone down. She also featured twelve 5-inch/51 caliber guns, eight 3-inch anti-aircraft guns and two submerged 21-inch torpedo tubes. Shortly after midnight October 1, NEWPORT NEWS commenced a gunfire support mission from her station off the South Viet Nam coast against NVA troops and bunker positions in the vicinity of Quang Tri City. Forty-eight sailors were killed, and only one of the sailors manning the turret survived. The ships were simulating a chase, firing only their forward turrets at close range. USS Franklin (CV-13) approaches the Brooklyn Navy Yard on April 28, 1945. . Your email address will not be published. At the time of the 1943 explosion, the Mississippi, a New Mexico-class battleship built at Newport News Shipbuilding and commissioned in 1917, was shelling Makin Island in the Pacific. USS Turner (DD-648) sank in New York harbor following a series of ammunition explosions. The deadly blast aboard the Iowa marked the first explosion in a battleship turret since 1943, when 43 sailors aboard the USS Mississippi were killed, the Government Accountability Office later . ww2dbaseIn early 1942, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mississippi rejoined the Pacific Fleet. You need to play a total of 20 battles to post in this section. The residue from the smokeless propellant had to be removed chemically. The goal of this On April 16, 1989 there was an explosion in a gun turret on the U.S.S. "I was like: OK; I'll bite; why? Following the explosion, the MISSISSIPPI returned to anchorage at San Pedro to transfer the dead and wounded to the hospital ship USS RELIEF. Carr was wearing headphones that allowed him to hear what the crews in the other turrets were saying. Following repairs, she participated in the capture of Kwajalein in February 1944 and bombarded Japanese-held islands in February and March. "It's a classic example of Navy leaders not being willing to speak truth to power and make the hard decisions," Carroll said. Mississippi provided gunfire support for the Lingayen landings in January 1945 and for the conquest of Okinawa in March-June. "Dec. 10. Maybe I will get to see Hotel Street after all. She was powered by nine Babcock and Wilcox boilers and her four screws were driven by four Curtis turbines producing a maximum 32,000 horsepower. Ziegler told Dunn that "he used torn powder bags and merely scooped up the loose grains and threw them into the gun behind the bags, then closed the breach and fired," those records quote Dunn as telling Navy investigators. He said the final technical report on the Iowa explosions had been released to Congress; a congressional source said it concluded that gunner's mate Clayton Hartwig, who died in the blasts, put a bomb made of chemicals into the breech and the bomb exploded and ignited the powder and propellant when compressed by the rammer. "Imagine an old timey cap gun, where you remove the caps, and bang them with a hammer," Truitt said. The Senator from Michigan has asked for a Court Martial of leading admirals and in the 14th Naval District. Capt. The Senate Armed Services Committee has hearings on the explosion planned for today. Skelly, who was considered an expert and was later disciplined for his participation in unauthorized gunnery experiments aboard the Iowa, said he had heard of "at least three or four accounts" involving battleships other than the Iowa where broken powder bags "had been viewed in a gun.". The hand of a dead crewman in the number two turret accidentally hit the firing switch for the port gun, firing it. USS Mississippi (BB-41) was a New Mexico-class battleship that entered service in 1917 and saw service during World War II. Anyway, what's left of it. Island Hopping . Seaman First Class Fidler was just seventeen years old when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. fully into the war. Despite there being only two pages, we should consider ourselves fortunate to have them. The USS Iowa turret explosion occurred in the Number Two 16-inch gun turret of the United States Navy battleship USS Iowa (BB-61) on April 19, 1989. In 1943, the big battleship was off the coast of Makin Island, providing naval gunfire support to a landing force preparing to secure the island. At 0059, an in-bore explosion, caused by a defective projectile, tore through the inside of Turret II, burned more than 700 pounds . He battled to contain the fire until he passed out from smoke inhalation, waking up later in an emergency dress battle station. "He died in my arms.". Even $1 per month will go a long way! In 1943, the big battleship was off the coast of Makin Island, providing naval gunfire support to a . TheIowasubsequently went to the shipyard so its power plant could be improved, but its gun systems weren't updated, he said. She was redesignated AG-128 and equipped with a number of radars and prototype air defense missile systems. In the case of theIowa, the devastating blast happened toward the tail end of the Cold War, when the Navy felt it needed 600 ships to counter the Soviets. If so, please consider supporting us on Patreon. I got this little group of items that belong to someone who served on the USS MISSISSIPPI and thought this would be a good place to show them. The last shell and charge was removed the next day. Trying to contain it.'". Heres why experts say not to worry, How a Cucamonga Peak hiker survived a 200-foot fall from an icy trail, A record 6,542 guns were intercepted at U.S. airports in 2022, How to have the best Sunday in L.A., according to Rachel Bloom. On the eighth salvo, turret two, gun two suffered a rare flare back. The four powder bags inserted into the breech, totaling 470 pounds of explosive powder, caught fire and ignited other bags waiting to be loaded. USS Mississippi (BB-41/AG-128), a New Mexico-class battleship, was the third ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the 20th state, and the second battleship to carry the name.Commissioned in 1917, too late to serve in World War I, she served extensively in the Pacific in World War II, for which she earned eight battle stars.She was one of several pre-war battleships that . Please refrain from using strong language. After an extensive preliminary bombardment, the Marine assault force headed towards the beach and Mississippi and the other ships increased their rate of fire. USS Mississippi (BB-41) was the second of three ships of the New Mexico-class battleships. BB-41 suffered another turret explosion killing 43 men 20 November 1943 off Makin Island. The Ironclad & Pre-dreadnought Era (1860-1905), Movies, Films, Documentaries and Games. Funeral services were held June 17 on Trona Field at San Pedro. 2, the ship was anchored just inside the breakwater. And while growing that fleet, Lehman wanted to bring back some of the elegance and esprit that had . Nearly twenty yearsand a major refit laterthe USS Mississippi went to war in the Pacific. The New Mexico class was the fourth of six distinct battleship classes laid down the 1910s, as the Navy rushed to fortify the Atlantic against tensionsand then outright warin Europe. USS Mississippi was damaged by Japanese special attack aircraft at Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, Philippine Islands. They further claimed Hartwig became suicidal because he and Truitt who was married at the time had been lovers but Truitt had rebuffed him. Debris from firing the big guns had again ignited powder bags, causing the same accident and the same damage. USS Mississippi was decommissioned from service. Only two sailors in the turret firing room, J.F. But unlike other explosions, the 16-inch gun in the No. The New Mexico-class ships had 13.5 inches of steel armor at the belt, and her turrets were protected with nine to eighteen inches of armor plating. 2 turret during gunnery practice. he Washington Post reported in September 1989. A photo taken from the bridge captures the explosion of the No. "That's sort of what started the whole thing.". "The powder door was still open to the center gun that armored hatch was still open," Carr said. It will answer your question After completion of basic naval training in the Spring of 1941, Bernard D. Fidler, of Burlington, Iowa, was given duty aboard the battleship U.S.S. by tommy303 Thu Apr 03, 2014 11:55 pm, Post A new method in the launch of ship-based aircraft was displayed with the explosive-powered catapult launch of a Martin MO-1 observation plane from the forward turret of the USS Mississippi. They also repeated assurances that friction or other accidental means did not cause the Iowa deaths. The mighty warship was 624 feet long with a beam of 97.5 feet, and displaced 33,000 tons fully loaded. The 1943 incident was virtually identical, and the Bureau of Ordnance . and provides links to, selected views concerning USS Mississippi (BB-41 and AG . During 40 years of service, US Navy battleship . Destroyers report there are six subs in back of us. The turret explosion was captured by a camera mounted in one of the USS Iowa's towers. Caviezel and Robert McAvin, escaped, by diving down through a 40-foot hatchway that closed automatically behind them. However, what he writes on December 10 and 11, 1941, tells the story well. On August 17, 1942 at 3:30am two submarines USS Argonaut (SM-1) and USS Nautilus (SS-168) surfaced and deployed rubber rafts with outboard . Two days after the attack, accompanied by the battleship IDAHO and a number of destroyers, the Mississippi departed Iceland for Norfolk. Less than two decades later, the Mississippi went through the same agony again. Iowa. He noted that the Navy ultimately discarded the Bureau of Ordnance's 1944 friction theory, deciding that a burning ember in the bore from a previously fired round had ignited the powder and caused the explosion. 24 were killed. She was commissioned in December 1917, and operated in the western Atlantic area until July 1919, when she transited the Panama Canal to the Pacific. In 1943, the big battleship was off the coast of Makin Island, providing naval gunfire support to a landing force preparing to secure the island. If Germany has declared war on the U.S., they should be bombing Iceland soon.". In this part I will briefly describe . Or had she been transferred to the Atlantic Fleet? "He hit me on the shoulder one day, and he's like, 'If I ever die, you're going to be a rich man,'" Truitt recalled. Official USN photo # DN-ST-89-06800, by LT. United States General Accounting Office. Truitt was in the magazine below the No. When we're doing a shot with more than three shells, you would stage powder bags inside the powder flats. You can follow him on Twitter: @KyleMizokami. Those people turned out to be Gunner's Mate 2nd Class Clayton Hartwig, whom the Navy had initially claimed had loaded the gun before it exploded, and his best friend, Gunner's Mate 3rd Class Kendall Truitt. I still think we will make it without any casualties.". The gunners on all three battlewagons were competing for a $20 prize that Congress had voted to award the fleets most proficient naval marksman. 2 16-inch gun turret aboard the Iowa (BB-61). You might like to see my original copy of the Memorial Address. Built while America was a neutral party inWorld War I,Mississippisailed into the atomic age and later served as a massive test platform for surface-to-air missiles. USS Mississippi (BB-41/AG-128), the second of three members of the New Mexico class of battleship, was the third ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the 20th state.The ship was built at the Newport News Shipbuilding Company of Newport News, Virginia, from her keel laying in April 1915, her launching in January 1917, and her commissioning in December that year. According to the findings from a 1944 investigation by the Navy's Bureau of Ordnance, the explosion in turret No. The USS Iowa turret explosion occurred in the Number Two 16inch gun turret of the United States Navy battleship USSIowa(BB61) on 19 April 1989. "They were the real gun experts," said retired Rear Adm. Gene LaRocque, a former battleship captain and the founder of the Center for Defense Information in Washington. Francis Zacharias was only 16 when he enlisted and used his older brother's birth certificate without his parent's knowledge. "This is just from my experience of three years of working and shooting those guns: Eventually the powder bags ripped and the rammer head or the rammer chain sparked, and that's what set off the first explosion," Carr said. In these tests, Navy technicians simulated conditions in the center gun at the time of the accident, including ramming the 110-pound bags of powder 21-inches further into the barrel than normal. They subsequently wrote lawmakers saying that it was unfair Truitt would receive the money instead of Hartwig's parents. Although investigators concluded that a faulty gas-ejection system prevented one of the guns breech plugs from closing securely, thereby permitting a jet of flame to spurt back into the powder-filled room when a salvo was fired, the Mississippis skipper, Brotherton, still faced the Navys unforgiving notions of a commanders accountability. Don't worry about collecting. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. I'm sorry for anyone's personal grief or personal anguish over that.". The accident has been a major influence on my life. The 14-inch/50 caliber gun was plagued with technical issues, a major problem considering it was the primary armament on the majority of serving U.S. Navy battleships. Was armored to 3.5 inches and the conning tower to sixteen inches firing it went to the from. 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