uss mississippi turret explosion 1943

It's easy! ww2dbaseIn early 1942, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Mississippi rejoined the Pacific Fleet. But unlike other explosions, the 16-inch gun in the No. "That couldn't have been the case on Iowa," Coles said. . Reply. Battleship USS Mississippi, cruiser USS Minneapolis, and destroyers USS Shaw and McKean arrived at Pago Pago, Samoa. Forty-three sailors died. Despite her forty years of service, Mississippi was bound to tragedy, experiencing two major accidents in the same turret, in the same gun, twenty years apart. A news report about the USS Iowa gun turret explosion in 1989. The tombstone inscription reads "Francis J. Zacharias Born July 19, 1905, Killed by Explosion on USS Mississippi at San Pedro California 1924. Displayed at the Los Angeles Maritime Museum Navy Hall in San Pedro is a stone monument dedicated to the men who lost their lives in one of the nations greatest peacetime naval disasters. After having sent almost 100 sailors to their deaths in two separate explosions, the 39-year-old Mississippi was scrapped in 1956. During the latter operation, on 29 November 1943, Mississippi experienced another turret explosion, which took 43 lives. The guns' lubricants were the next to ignite, he said. Assigned to Task Group 58.2, the battleship supported operations in the Marshall Islands in January 1944 including the invasion of Kwajalein. 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. 2 aboard the Mississippi resulted from either the presence of a burning ember left in the barrel "or from friction of the powder bags against the moving rammer" that pushed the propellant and projectile into position. The photo was from the book Battleship Country--The Battle Fleet at San Pedro-Long Beach, Ca. It took the sailors eight hours to douse the blaze. She spent most of 1942 along the U.S. west coast and went to the South Pacific late in that year. From July to December, she made a series of patrols between the East Coast and Iceland, where the U.S. had recently established a base at Hvalfjordur. 2. The General Accounting Office and both House and Senate armed services committees are reviewing the Navy's investigation. 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. 2, Senior Chief Reginald Ziegler, told him that ripped bags of propellant were not always discarded as required by Navy safety rules. During the latter operation, on 29 November 1943, Mississippi experienced another turret explosion, which took 43 lives. 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. Based on the survivors account, the Navy believed that a fire or burning debris was present in the gun barrel and ignited the powder bags. It was responsible for designing and building the guns for Navy ships during the first half of the century. You need to play a total of 20 battles to post in this section. . Australian news report on the USS . The investigations produced conflicting conclusions. The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret's crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. The aging battlewagon had served longer than most ships at the time, but it had also experienced two rare tragedies, in the same place, under similar circumstances. On the clear, crisp, windy afternoon of June 12, 1924, a few minutes before noon, the 7-year-old vessel, was involved in intense mock warfare maneuvers 40 miles south of Los Angeles with two other Pacific Fleet battleships, the Tennessee and the Idaho. Over more than a decade, she operated with the fleet's other battleships, conducting exercises and training operations in the Pacific and in the Caribbean. "The powder door was still open to the center gun that armored hatch was still open," Carr said. Later in the year, she was part of the force that invaded Peleliu and Leyte and defeated a Japanese task force in the Battle of Surigao Strait. Forty-seven coffins were arranged on the field. On 19 April 1989, the Number Two 16-inch gun turret of the United States Navy battleship USS Iowa (BB-61) exploded. 3 January 1944. Brotherton knew something was drastically wrong when he noticed brownish smoke coming from the No. It was one of the worst disasters suffered by the Navy during peacetime. Decommissioned in September 1956, USS Mississippi was sold for scrapping in November of that year, after almost forty years of service. TURRET TWO: DAMAGE CONTROL MEASURES FOLLOWING THE EXPLOSION . USS Mississippi, a 32,000 ton New Mexico class battleship, was built at Newport News, Virginia. Forty-eight men died of asphyxiation as a result of the explosion. Original Reporting. 1920's (U.S. Navy photo) USS Mississippi, a 32,000 ton New Mexico class battleship, was built at Newport News, Virginia. They subsequently wrote lawmakers saying that it was unfair Truitt would receive the money instead of Hartwig's parents. Suddenly, in the midst of the barrage, smoke and gas erupted from the rangefinders on either side of the number two turret. It's been 30 years since an explosion inside the number two gun turret on the USSIowakilled 47 American sailors, but for Mike Carr, it still feels like yesterday. The Navy Bureau of Ordnance is considered authoritative on both weapons. On 20 November the Mississippi suffered an explosion in a main turret, killing 43 men. Mississippiwas a heavily armed battleship by the standards of the day. The Case of the U.S.S. Nearly twenty yearsand a major refit laterthe USS Mississippi went to war in the Pacific. 2s 14-inch guns went off again. Carr was eventually able to climb into the wrecked turret. Facts later emerged that undermined the Navy's first investigation into the explosion, Truitt said. 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. Then they found two sailors who had been blown from the turret onto the deck. Please refrain from using strong language. 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. 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. A photo taken from the bridge captures the explosion of the No. 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. Investigators also found that some access safety doors inside the turret had been left partly open. They are thick, alright. Despite her forty years of service,Mississippiwas bound to tragedy, experiencing two major accidents in the same turret, in the same gun, twenty years apart. Later in the year, she was part of the force that invaded Peleliu and Leyte and defeated a Japanese task force in the Battle of Surigao Strait. She was bombed from the air. The hand of a dead crewman in the number two turret accidentally hit the firing switch for the port gun, firing it. Your IP address will be tracked even if you remain anonymous. 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. During gunnery practice on 12 June 1924, she suffered a turret fire that took the lives of 48 of her crew. . The battleship was damaged by suicide planes in both operations. Does anyone know or have a list of the sailors killed in the Nov. 1943 #2 turret explosion on the USS Mississippi? She spent most of 1942 along the U.S. west coast and went to the South Pacific late in that year. 48 killed. 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. The photo was from the book Battleship Country--The Battle Fleet at San Pedro-Long Beach, Ca. Thank you. This is part 2 of a series on the April 19, 1989 explosion on board the battleship Iowa which killed 47 sailors in gun turret 2 of the main (16") battery. The blast, which killed 47 men on five of the six levels inside the No. In 1924 and 1943, open breech explosions had occurred in the Turret Two center gun aboard Mississippi, each time killing most of the crewmen in the turret. Before his death, he asked to be buried next to one of the victims of the Mississippi disaster at Point Loma in San Diego. Iowa. During the mid-1950s, she was test ship for the Navy's first surface-to-air guided missile, the "Terrier". On June 12, 1924, the MISSISSIPPI, along with the battleships TENNESSEE and IOWA, was engaged in gunnery practice off San Clemente Island. Miceli's team responded that the explosions were not related, because the Mississippi incidents were not actual explosions, but "intense burnings" of the powder which resulted from different . A fiery explosion ripped through a huge gun turret on the battleship USS Iowa yesterday, killing an estimated 47 sailors and injuring an undetermined number of others during a . . A Marine rifle squad fired three volleys. 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 determined. "We all knew each other rather intimately.". 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 MISSY crewman who sent the postcard home must have been part of the recovery party. 13 June 1924 1. I'm very sorry it ever occurred. "That fireball went straight to the bottom of the turret. Abner Read began sinking by the stern and 20 minutes after the attack, she rolled over and sank. The Mississippi enjoyed a reputation for collecting gunnery awards, and the day before had hit 52 out of 55 targets. The current unconfirmed reports say that Germany has declared war on the U.S., which doesn't make much difference. National Security. by paul.mercer Thu Apr 03, 2014 9:29 pm, Post The military eats their own it takes a while to realize that.". Out of commission? Post But it soon became apparent that the World War II-era battleships required too much time, money, and manpower to be overhauled, Carroll said. Prince of Wales and H.M.S. After the explosion, Truitt mentioned the insurance policy in passing to Hartwig's family. We just outran several units of the German fleet (submarines). 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. 43 killed, 19 injured. 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. "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. For inquiries about military records for members of the World War II armed forces, please see our FAQ. Lt. Zellars' body had already been sent to Georgia for burial. "We did not accuse Kendall Truitt of anything in the investigation or the other gent," Kelso said. Here is one of my postings from another collecting forum. He said: 'No, it's the same thing my dad did.". An explosion in the No. The 1943 incident was virtually identical, and the Bureau of Ordnance cited either smodering debris from a previous shot or friction from over ramming the charges as possible causes. When the Iowa investigation was completed and released on Sept. 7, the Navy said this idea had been discarded after Miceli and his team were unable to cause an explosion with friction and after Navy criminal investigators conceived their theory that the blasts were caused by a distraught sailor. In fact, the Iowa did so poorly on its first inspection that it was recommended to be decommissioned. Officers wearing full-dress uniforms and enlisted men formed a square around the coffins as rifle shots were fired 21 times and the Navy bugler played taps. I heard they are going to put up a telephone line from Portsmouth, Virginia, to Hvalfordur, Iceland, using the periscopes for poles. The last shell and charge was removed the next day. . 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. The battleship Mississippi, built in 1915, was the last to have an explosion involving her main guns. RSS. BB-41 suffered another turret explosion killing 43 men 20 November 1943 off Makin Island. During his early months aboard the MISSISSIPPI, Seaman Fidler maintained a log book. Mississippi provided gunfire support for the Lingayen landings in January 1945 and for the conquest of Okinawa in March-June. Mississippi was sold for scrapping in November of that year from the bridge the! Ignite, he said and building the guns ' lubricants were the next uss mississippi turret explosion 1943 ignite, said! 20 November 1943, Mississippi rejoined the Pacific Fleet she was test ship for the port gun, it! 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Major refit laterthe USS Mississippi went to the bottom of the recovery party investigation!

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