And while growing that fleet, Lehman wanted to bring back some of the elegance and esprit that had . The military looks for scapegoats when people die rather than admit their mistakes or acknowledge that accidents are even possible, Truitt said. By the way, my uncle's name was Francis Zacharias. In order to place the present memorial over the ship, a section of the boat deck that rested over the galley amidships was cut away. "The powder door was still open to the center gun that armored hatch was still open," Carr said. 1920's (U.S. Navy photo) USS Mississippi, a 32,000 ton New Mexico class battleship, was built at Newport News, Virginia. It was the deadliest peacetime naval disaster ever to occur along the California coast, an explosion that tore through a gun turret on the battleship Mississippi, killing 48 sailors and injuring dozens more. 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. At first, because of the fumes, it was impossible to reach any of the men, even with masks and oxygen tanks. 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 . 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. Laid down in April 1915 at the Newport News Naval Yard, Virginia,Mississippiwas commissioned in December 1917, a month after the end of World War I. Prewar and during the Pacific War located in the Gilbert Islands. ww2dbaseIn early 1942, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mississippi rejoined the Pacific Fleet. 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. What's our Navy doing anyway? 47 men were killed. The British lost the Prince of Wales and the Repulse. Repulse have gone down. Flame and gases immediately filled the gun compartment, passed through the safety doors above the shell table to the other two gun compartments and through the peep doors to the turret officer's booth. The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret's crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. 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 . "USS Mississippi (BB-41) cordite fire in the #2 14-inch gun turret. During the mid-1950s, she was test ship for the Navy's first surface-to-air guided missile, the "Terrier". In June 1941, in response to the deteriorating war situation in Europe, she was brought back to the Atlantic, operating between the United States and Iceland during much of the rest of that year. Here's the explanation: http://archive . ww2dbaseDuring 1931-33 , Mississippi underwent a major modernization that gave her an all-new superstructure, improved armament and enhanced protection. "Imagine an old timey cap gun, where you remove the caps, and bang them with a hammer," Truitt said. It was one of the worst disasters suffered by the Navy during peacetime. 20 November 1943." Battleship USS Missouri - Official Website NavSource - USS Missouri (BB-41) by paul.mercer Thu Apr 03, 2014 9:29 pm, Post Was on board 1943-45. . USS New Jersey During World War II . 12:00 a.m. June 9, 1999: For the Record Los Angeles Times Wednesday June 9, 1999 Home Edition Metro Part B Page 3 Metro Desk 2 inches; 37 words Type of Material: Correction Battleship photo--A photo of a naval funeral that accompanied the L.A. Then and Now column in Sundays Times was incorrectly credited. The explosion tore through the No. Although the worst loss of life in peace time, the turret explosion aboard Iowa in 1989 is tied with the 1942 explosion in the No. MISSISSIPPI. 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. I served aboad the USS . During the early 1920s, the battleship USS MISSISSIPPI (BB-41) was the pride of the Pacific Fleet. How to find the best blooms without the drama, Nature-curious? Very informative. USS Mississippi arrived at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for an overhaul. Battleship USS Mississippi, cruiser USS Minneapolis, and destroyers USS Shaw and McKean departed Suva, Fiji bound for Pago Pago, Samoa. Team Mighty. The 1943 incident was virtually identical, and the Bureau of Ordnance . Thanks for sharing it. My uncle died in 1937 from TB (he contracted while on active duty) so the story was told to me by his brother (my grandfather). It was also clear that each 16-inch gun turret required more sailors than the Navy could afford to assign. "This is essentially what happened. While bombarding Makin 20 November, a turret explosion, almost identical to the earlier tragedy, killed 43 men. In 2009 he cofounded the defense and security blog Japan Security Watch. The last U.S. warship to experience an explosion in a similar-type gun turret was the battleship USS Mississippi when it was shelling Japanese-held Makin Island in the Pacific in November 1943 . It took the sailors eight hours to douse the blaze. Carr was eventually able to climb into the wrecked turret. Following repairs, she participated in the capture of Kwajalein in February 1944 and bombarded Japanese-held islands in February and March. He said: "It's no big deal. If Germany has declared war on the U.S., they should be bombing Iceland soon.". Second, it is to showcase 2. -November 1943, the battleship USS Mississippi, while shelling Makin Island in World War II, had an explosion in turret No. At roughly one horsepower per ton, she was not terribly fast, with a top speed of just twenty-one knots. Idaho and four destroyers. 2. Although each barrel was blasted between firings with pressurized air to evacuate debris, the middle barrel of each turret received a lower pressure burst than the left and right barrels. "The gun where the explosion occurred had not fired" that day. No doubt inspired by events, Fidler began to record the actions of the MISSISSIPPI and his sense of what was transpiring, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Black smoke poured out from the burning No. On 20 November the Mississippi suffered an explosion in a main turret, killing 43 men. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Jaguars, narcos, illegal loggers: One mans battle to save a Guatemalan jungle and Maya ruins, Has wildflower shaming gone too far? He is the founder and editor for the blogs Japan Security Watch, Asia Security Watch and War Is Boring. Japanese observation planes have been seen over San Francisco. Two hundred sailors of each battleship of Battleship Division 4 were present. Forty-two sailors were killed and another sixteen wounded. Politics. A bizarre accident occurred afterward while theMississippiwas anchored in San Pedro Bay. 1943 - 1943: 9: My father, A.A. Frye was an anti-aircraft gunner's mate on the starboard side. Several salvos were fired by each ship, but then there was trouble with "Missy's" number two turret. USS Franklin (CV-13) approaches the Brooklyn Navy Yard on April 28, 1945. . Mississippi suffered two turret explosions, oddly enough the same turret each time if I recall. 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. The Mississippi enjoyed a reputation for collecting gunnery awards, and the day before had hit 52 out of 55 targets. A similar explosion in a turret of the battleship Mississippi in 1920 led the Navy to redesign its turrets to prevent future accidents . She had a reputation of being the fastest firing and hardest hitting warship and she won the coveted "E" for excellence award for gunnery and engineering many times. According to Truitt, Hartwig first told him about the insurance policy two years before the explosion as the Iowa was preparing for a six-month combat deployment to deter Libya from attacking merchant ships. By 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. In this role, she carried a variety of old and new guns and radars, while serving with the Operational Development Force in the Atlantic. During the latter operation, on 29 November 1943, Mississippi experienced another turret explosion, which took 43 lives. 2, the ship was anchored just inside the breakwater. Am trying to find information of awards/medals that might have been awarded. The reports by psycholgists of the FBI and the Naval Investigative Service indicated Hartwig deliberately caused the April 19 blast in one of the battleship's gun turrents, killing himself and 46 . Two major investigations were undertaken into the cause of the explosion, one by the U.S. Navy and then one by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Sandia National Laboratories. She returned to the Pacific in October 1934 to resume her earlier pattern of regular exercises, Fleet Problems and training. This first appeared in 2019. On June 12, 1924, there was an explosion in the USS Mississippi's No. 2 gun turret, left two fully loaded gun barrels in the same . The residue from the smokeless propellant had to be removed chemically. Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Francisco who has appeared in theDiplomat, Popular Mechanics, Foreign Policy,War is Boring,and theDaily Beast. I never researched the turret explosion story, but the one aboard the Iowa in 1989 (killing 47) was what spurred my grandfather to relay the story to me regarding his brother. Incredibly it had happened again: in their haste to lay down a rain of shells on the Japanese, the gunners of number two turret had apparently experienced yet another flare back. 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. Nearly twenty yearsand a major refit laterthe USS Mississippi went to war in the Pacific. Only the turret officers can be identified. The goal of this "I regret the accident occurred, obviously. I'll bet the Prince took something down with her. "Dec. 10. Navy investigators allege that Hartwig, the captain of the gun, had encouraged the rammer that day to push the load that far. 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