April 19, 1989 ... USS Iowa

"On April 19, 1989, an explosion in Number 2 turret killed forty-seven of her gun crew; twenty ammunition handlers six decks below survived the blast. The official Navy investigation blamed the accident on a crew member, claiming that he had intentionally set off the explosion in despair over a homosexual relationship. The family denied the accusations and the Navy later retracted its claim, which many considered a cover-up for a more basic mechanical failure."
http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/ships/html/sh_049000_ussiowa.htm


http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0393047148.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,32,-59_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Early on an April morning, in the course of a routine training exercise in the Caribbean, the center gun in Turret Two of the recommissioned battleship USS Iowa blew up. The fireball that surged back into the seven-story death chamber released clouds of poisonous gases and ignited bags of powder, setting off further explosions. When firefighters finally battered open the escape hatch to the upper level of the turret, they saw bodies everywhere. At the base of the pit under the center gun room lay the remains of a sailor, much of his body missing. Tattooed on the upper left arm was a sailing ship with the words USS Iowa. Only one man on the battleship had a tattoo like that: second-class gunner's mate Clayton Hartwig. A botched investigation began mere hours after the deadly explosion. Captain Fred Moosally, an Annapolis football star who had recently taken command of the Iowa, declined an offer of assistance from a professional accident team aboard a nearby aircraft carrier. At his order, some 250 sailors labored to clean up the scarred turret, heaving immense steel plates and bulky pieces of equipment overboard and scrubbing off splatters of gore before painting the structure inside and out. Matters got even worse when the investigation began on land. A technical team managed to lose key evidence, two 2700-pound projectiles, in a locked storage facility, while conducting tests that proved nothing but the team's own incompetence. Squads from the Naval Investigative Service tried to twist testimony from grieving relatives of the slaughtered crew members. The concerted effort to pin blame for the Iowa explosion on Seaman Hartwig, supposedly acting to revenge a thwarted homosexual affair, ultimately destroyed careers up the chain of command of the U.S. Navy.


See also http://www.combie.net/webharbor/museum/bb61-2.html

The whole thing upset me on many levels. My uncle was a plankowner on Iowa in WWII.

I remember Adm. Crowe on MacNeil Leherer that night disowning the official report.

For god's sake they were using gunpowder from the early 1950s, and were storing it incorrectly!!!!!

the old gunpowder was before the accident.

Did the Navy ever apologize to Seaman Hartwig's family? What a horrible tragedy.