The Mississippi enjoyed a reputation for collecting gunnery awards, and the day before had hit 52 out of 55 targets. US Navy battleship USS Mississippi in Hampton Roads, Virginia, June 4, 1927. "Thus helping Kendall suddenly become a suspect," Truitt said. by paul.mercer Thu Apr 03, 2014 9:29 pm, Post "I was like: OK; I'll bite; why? 2 turret. 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. In its investigation of the explosion, the Navy concluded that the explosion was the result of a deliberate act and not a defect in the gun or propellant. After an extensive preliminary bombardment, the Marine assault force headed towards the beach and Mississippi and the other ships increased their rate of fire. Despite knowing how to solve the problem, the same accident happened two times over 20 years. In 1943, she took part operations against Kiska Island, in the Aleutians, and in the capture of the Gilbert Islands. Navy officials say technical experts conducted more than 20,000 tests on bags of powder taken from the Iowa last spring, including attempts to create an explosion through friction. Nov 1, 2021, 1:18 PM. 2 turret during gunnery practice. Your IP address will be tracked even if you remain anonymous. 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 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. By Over the protests of local clergymen, who believed that an admiral had no right officiating at funeral rites, Pratt insisted on delivering a tearful and moving eulogy. 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. They are considered buried at sea by the US Navy. The waterspray system was not, if I recall, used to clear the bore between shots, just the compressed air blast. Mississippi was a heavily armed battleship by the standards of the day. Suddenly, in the midst of the barrage, smoke and gas erupted from the rangefinders on either side of the number two turret. 43 killed, 19 injured. Here is a portion of a realphoto postcard showing the removal of the dead once the ship returned to port. Mississippiwas a heavily armed battleship by the standards of the day. In June 1941, USS Mississippi patrolled the North Atlantic. W.D. 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. Published April 02, 2018 09:40:36. 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. I heard they are going to put up a telephone line from Portsmouth, Virginia, to Hvalfordur, Iceland, using the periscopes for poles. She was present in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, when Japan formally surrendered and returned to the United States soon thereafter. Your uncle is the last named MISSISSIPPI sailor. 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 damaged 33,000-ton dreadnought headed back to port. "Dec. 10. 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. From the Washington Naval Treaty to the end of the Second World War. Mississippi steamed to Australia on a U.S. Fleet good will tour in mid-1925. The hand of a dead crewman in the number two turret accidentally hit the firing switch for the port gun, firing it. We just outran several units of the German fleet (submarines). Previously, ships other than aircraft-carriers had to come to a halt in order to lower the aircraft into the water to allow them to take off. TheIowasubsequently went to the shipyard so its power plant could be improved, but its gun systems weren't updated, he said. It was during this period, when on special training maneuvers, that tragedy struck the ship. While at Navy Federal, bankers told Hartwig that buying an extra life insurance policy would only cost $4 per month. 24 were killed. "That couldn't have been the case on Iowa," Coles said. . 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. Sandia investigators asked if two similar explosions on the battleship USS Mississippi could be related to the Iowa explosion. Seconds before Turret No. On the back, he marked the place where each body was found! "Imagine an old timey cap gun, where you remove the caps, and bang them with a hammer," Truitt said. They are thick, alright. 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 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. Politics. Francis Zacharias was only 16 when he enlisted and used his older brother's birth certificate without his parent's knowledge. . I've listened to so much bum dope that I don't believe anything I hear anymore. 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. Your email address will not be published. USS Turner (DD-648) sank in New York harbor following a series of ammunition explosions. 2 turrets periscope holes, even as the ships other guns continued firing. A bizarre accident occurred afterward while the Mississippi was anchored in San Pedro Bay. A news report about the USS Iowa gun turret explosion in 1989. There's some paper with this group and his hat. It took the sailors eight hours to douse the blaze. This need not have happened. 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. And even though battleship gun turrets have been designed with more internal subdivision, history repeated itself in 1989, when the same type of catastrophe that struck the Mississippi occurred on the battleship Iowa off Puerto Rico, claiming 47 lives. turret II as the crew loaded the gun. 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. Meanwhile, Mississippi and Nashville had to take emergency evasive actions to avoid the torpedoes. In 1961 the USS ARIZONA was altered once more. 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. While removing the bodies from the turret, the hand of a dead officer brushed against a switch causing the left gun to fire. The ships were simulating a chase, firing only their forward turrets at close range. "They were trying to build up the Navy. At roughly one horsepower per ton, she was not terribly fast, with a top speed of just twenty-one knots. During 40 years of service, US Navy battleship . 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. When we're doing a shot with more than three shells, you would stage powder bags inside the powder flats. Iowa. USS Mississippi was damaged by Japanese special attack aircraft at Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, Philippine Islands. USS Franklin (CV-13) approaches the Brooklyn Navy Yard on April 28, 1945. . Following repairs, she participated in the capture of Kwajalein in February 1944 and bombarded Japanese-held islands in February and March. In November 1943 New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Idaho and Mississippi formed the Northern Attack Group (TG 52.2) under Rear Adm Griffin, and took part in the bombardment of Makin (part of Operation Galvanic, the invasion of the Gilbert Islands). USS Mississippi (BB-41), during combat operations off Makin, Gilbert Islands, suffers cordite explosion in #2 14-inch gun turret. After the war, Mississippi was effectively defanged, with three of her four main battery turrets removed. he Washington Post reported in September 1989. 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. 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. Kyle Mizokami is a defense and national-security writer based in San Fransisco. He braved the flames, smoke, and carnage inside the turret to turn on sprinklers so that bags of gunpowder would not go off, and he secured hatches so that the accumulating water would not sink the ship,he told Penthouse in a January 1990 interview. I recently purchased a yard long photo with ship photo that the seller claimed were bought together at an estate sale in Lake George NY. 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. Forty-eight sailors were killed, and only one of the sailors manning the turret survived. If anyone knows how to trace yard long personnel to the the active units assigned please let me know thanks. Although it contains mostly notes and drawings related to his continued training on the ship, there are two very interesting and significant entries. Several salvos were fired by each ship, but then there was trouble with "Missy's" number two turret. Editorial Guidelines and Publishing Standards. 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. After the war,Mississippiwas effectively defanged, with three of her four main battery turrets removed. 3. . Seaman First Class Fidler was just seventeen years old when the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the U.S. fully into the war. Almost instantly, forty-five men and three officers were dead from asphyxiation. 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. 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. Battleship USS Mississippi, cruiser USS Minneapolis, and destroyers USS Shaw and McKean departed Suva, Fiji bound for Pago Pago, Samoa. She was present in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945, when Japan formally surrendered and returned to the United States soon thereafter. Even $1 per month will go a long way! "The gun where the explosion occurred had not fired" that day. USSMississippi(BB-41) was the second of three ships of theNew Mexico-classbattleships. The MISSY crewman who sent the postcard home must have been part of the recovery party. Battleship USS Mississippi, cruiser USS Minneapolis, and destroyers USS Shaw, Boggs, and McKean arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Less than two decades later, the Mississippi went through the same agony again. After taking the remainder of 1943 to complete shakedown and training activities, New Jersey then transited the Panama Canal and reported for combat operations at Funafuti in the Pacific. Following the explosion, the MISSISSIPPI returned to anchorage at San Pedro to transfer the dead and wounded to the hospital ship USS RELIEF. This could have led to dangerous debris remaining in the breech when the gun crew assumed it was safe to load. 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. I was on active duty at that time. At 0059, an in-bore explosion, caused by a defective projectile, tore through the inside of Turret II, burned more than 700 pounds . They further claimed Hartwig became suicidal because he and Truitt who was married at the time had been lovers but Truitt had rebuffed him. The last explosion was so strong that it blew the turret's two-ton hatch off its hinges and into the water, he said. The explosion in the center gun room killed 47 of the turret's crewmen and severely damaged the gun turret itself. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Original Reporting. Only the turret officers can be identified. The main battery was distributed two turrets forward and two aft. Also, the crew failed to examine one or more of the gun bores and call out Bore clear!" 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. 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