uss mississippi turret explosion 1943

The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret's crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. They also repeated assurances that friction or other accidental means did not cause the Iowa deaths. What's our Navy doing anyway? Only two sailors in the turret firing room, J.F. She arrived at Norfolk, Virginia, in June but soon shifted her base to Newport, Rhode Island. 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. 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. 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 . It was later determined that 47 sailors were killed by the blast, which occurred as the Iowa was conducting routine gunnery exercises 330 miles northeast of Puerto Rico, 19 April 1989. BB-41 suffered another turret explosion killing 43 men 20 November 1943 off Makin Island. For example, Hartwig had not been responsible for loading the gun, as the Navy initially claimed. Smoldering material left in the gun had ignited the powder charge of the next shot. Meanwhile, Mississippi and Nashville had to take emergency evasive actions to avoid the torpedoes. TURRET TWO: DAMAGE CONTROL MEASURES FOLLOWING THE EXPLOSION . Prewar and during the Pacific War located in the Gilbert Islands. Another sailor, David Smith, claimed that Navy investigators had coerced him into telling them Hartwig propositioned him and discussed how to use a bomb's timer, the Washington Post reported in September 1989. 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. Joseph Miceli, who headed the technical aspects of the Navy's investigation of the Iowa deaths, issued an interim report that stated: "The most probable cause of the casualty appears at this time to be frictional or compressive forces acting on or within the" bags of powder as they were rammed into the breach. Several salvos were fired by each ship, but then there was trouble with "Missy's" number two turret. Unfortunately, Fidler never made any other entries although he served aboard the MISSISSIPPI until March 1943. On June 12, 1924,Mississippifound herselfoff the coast of California conducting gun trials. He said: 'No, it's the same thing my dad did.". 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. Navy.". 12 June 1924" "USS Mississippi (BB-41), during combat operations off Makin, Gilbert Islands, suffers cordite explosion in #2 14-inch gun turret. I heard they are going to put up a telephone line from Portsmouth, Virginia, to Hvalfordur, Iceland, using the periscopes for poles. 2 turret as Carr and other sailors donned their firefighting gear. turret II as the crew loaded the gun. 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 . Today located in Republic of Kiribati. After the war, Mississippi was effectively defanged, with three of her four main battery turrets removed. 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). "USS Mississippi (BB-41, later AG . 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. A battleship force on station at the northern entrance to Surigao Strait consisting of battleships USS Mississippi, California, and Pennsylvania screened by cruisers USS Phoenix, Boise, Nashville, and HMAS Shropshire along with destroyers Ammen, Bush, Leutze, Newcomb, Bennion, Heywood L. Edwards, Robinson, Richard P. Leary, Bryant, and Claxton came under an intense Japanese air attacking force that included special attack aircraft. Fearing that the same might happen with the remaining gun, the captain moved the MISSISSIPPI outside the breakwater. As the stricken battleship glided into a San Pedro berth, Rear Adm. William V. Pratt boarded the ship and the hospital ship Relief pulled alongside. She was present in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, when Japan formally surrendered and returned to the United States soon thereafter. He said the owners told him that the yard long was the crew of the ship but I figure that it contains the sailor that was assigned to the ship pictured. I'm trying to find out the fate of an uncle who was on the ship and . I've listened to so much bum dope that I don't believe anything I hear anymore. During the latter operation, on 29 November 1943, Mississippi experienced another turret explosion, which took 43 lives. The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret's crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. Nearly twenty yearsand a major refit laterthe USSMississippiwent to war in the Pacific. Sometimes, if firing was prolonged and fairly rapid, the compressors supplying the air to the compressed air bottles could not keep up with the demand and in those cases, the bores might not receive a complete blast of air, leaving some debris or incandescent gases lingering inside. 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. 2 Turret was cold, meaning it hadn't been fired yet. There is also a picture of what I think is the USS MISSISSIPPI. USS Mississippi (BB41AG128), the second of three members of the New Mexicoclass, was the third ship of the United States Navy named in honor of the 20th state. When we're doing a shot with more than three shells, you would stage powder bags inside the powder flats. New Photos Might Show Ukraines Drones Can Strike Deep Into Russia, Could Jail Stop Donald Trump from Becoming President Again? The fleet in Pearl Harbor must have been asleep and I do not mean dozing. 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. An explosion in the No. by tommy303 Fri Apr 04, 2014 5:30 pm, Post Fire in center gun, turret 2. He had instinctively closed the doors to the ammunition hoist and flooded the magazines. Forty-two sailors were killed and another sixteen wounded. The main battery was distributed two turrets forward and two aft. . 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 dope' is out that we are going to the West Coast after our stay at Portsmouth. Pictured are A and B Turrets of the ' USS Mississippi ' . Only the turret officers can be identified. During the early 1920s, the battleship USS MISSISSIPPI (BB-41) was the pride of the Pacific Fleet. "At 10 minutes to 10 a.m., somebody came over the phones and said, 'We're having a problem, Turret 2, center gun,'" Carr recalled. Don't worry about collecting. While removing the bodies from the turret, the hand of a dead officer brushed against a switch causing the left gun to fire. 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. 2, the ship was anchored just inside the breakwater. "Then approximately two minutes later, I recognized Senior Chief [Reginald] Ziegler, who was the chief in charge of Turret 2, yell into the phones: 'Fire, fire, fire! Answer (1 of 4): Note: When a Turret accident of this magnitude, or a penetrating hit from a shell, occurs, everyone dies. I collect yard longs - mostly army or armored WWII but do have some Navy. Then they found two sailors who had been blown from the turret onto the deck. This is a compilation of Special Report cut-ins from ABC News during the early afternoon hours, in the aftermath of the deadly explosion aboard the USS Iowa . The USS Iowa (BB-61) was the lead ship of the last class of battleships built by the U.S. Navy, and was the first of four in that class to be commissioned, on 22 February 1943.Although the Japanese super-battleships Yamato and Musashi were heavier and had larger guns (nine 18.1-inch) the Iowa-class (Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin) were without doubt the most sophisticated . While bombarding Makin 20 November, a turret explosion, almost identical to the earlier tragedy, killed 43 men. 1920's (U.S. Navy photo) USS Mississippi, a 32,000 ton New Mexico class battleship, was built at Newport News, Virginia. Forty-eight sailors were killed, and only one of the sailors manning the turret survived. Mississippi provided gunfire support for the Lingayen landings in January 1945 and for the conquest of Okinawa in March-June. We just outran several units of the German fleet (submarines). "I knew all 47 guys inside that turret because as part of the ship's policy we had rotated between all three turrets," Carr, who served as a gunner's mate in the Iowa's aft 16-inch turret, told Task & Purpose. Battleship Mississippi (BB-41) Interactive Map. The last shell and charge was removed the next day. The residue from the smokeless propellant had to be removed chemically. "We stand by the results of the investigation," Coles said. U.S. Navy and Royal Australian Navy . The hand of a dead crewman in the number two turret accidentally hit the firing switch for the port gun, firing it. During 1931-33 , Mississippi underwent a major modernization that gave her an all-new superstructure, improved armament and enhanced protection. 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. I met my life-long friend Dave Welch, got to experience Fleet Week in NYC, and lived through the turret 2 explosion. The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret's crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. Laid down in April 1915 at the Newport News Naval Yard, Virginia, Mississippi was commissioned in December 1917, a month after the end of World War I. Today her name lives on in theVirginiaclass nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Mississippi (SSN-782). ww2dbaseUSS Mississippi, a 32,000 ton New Mexico class battleship, was built at Newport News, Virginia. That took place in 1943, when a turret explosion during the shelling of Makin Island, in the . 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. July 29, 2009 in EPHEMERA, PHOTOGRAPHS & MILITARY ARTWORK. Your uncle is the last named MISSISSIPPI sailor. Ward Carroll, a naval aviator who was a spokesman for the Naval Safety Center at the time. We hope that visitor conversations at WW2DB will be constructive and thought-provoking. Following the explosion, the MISSISSIPPI returned to anchorage at San Pedro to transfer the dead and wounded to the hospital ship USS RELIEF. Because there were still unfired rounds in the other two guns of Turret No. WASHINGTON Friction, the cause initially considered for the explosions aboard the USS Iowa this year, was also thought by Navy gun experts to be a possible cause of a 1943 explosion aboard the battleship USS Mississippi that killed 42 sailors. "The sad thing is I understand what they were doing and why they were doing it," Truitt told Task & Purpose. A Marine rifle squad fired three volleys. 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. Battleships USS Idaho, USS Mississippi, and USS New Mexico, escorted by 2 cruisers and 13 destroyers, were dispatched to patrol the Denmark Strait to protect American merchant shipping. 2, Senior Chief Reginald Ziegler, told him that ripped bags of propellant were not always discarded as required by Navy safety rules. "Thus helping Kendall suddenly become a suspect," Truitt said. I think it was a terrible, terrific tragedy that we had. 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. The MISSISSIPPI was part of the covering force for convoys and lines of communications in the North Atlantic. Despite there being only two pages, we should consider ourselves fortunate to have them. Later, the Navy would honor Zellars by naming a destroyer after him. Sandia National Laboratories later determined that the powder had been rammed 24 inches too far, compressing the powder charge against the base of the dummy projectile before it ignited, the GAO report said. He is buried in St Mary's cemetery in Pittsburgh PA. Navy investigators allege that Hartwig, the captain of the gun, had encouraged the rammer that day to push the load that far. A bizarre accident occurred afterward while the Mississippi was anchored in San Pedro Bay. Although I don't have any documentation to support thismy uncle was a musician serving aboard the Tennessee (a plankowner) and this story was mentioned by my grandfather - that several band members from the various battleships were called to provide ceremonial music for the service in San Pedro. 1919-1940, by Harvey M. Beigel. He already had policies that named his parents and another friend as beneficiaries. 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. Repulse have gone down. I said, again, this is weird. All others are marked with an "X.". German dive bombers would sink both ships in the spring of 1941. It was also clear that each 16-inch gun turret required more sailors than the Navy could afford to assign. 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. Off Makin Island asleep and i do not mean dozing the coast of California conducting gun trials wounded to West! And charge was removed the next shot was trouble with `` Missy ''. 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